@James Butler

I don't know if you were specifically replying to me, but I didn't deny that it is the law, I said: "This is clearly a case where the law is wrong."

The problem is that you can have public networks, some businesses and municipalities do it. The question is what you consider explicit permission. What if the SSID is "FreeWifi"? Does that constitute explicit consent? I would hope so or else there are alot of cities, libraries, small businesses, etc that are encouraging people to break the law.

But from a technological standpoint naming your SSID after whether it is public is redundant. Networks should be named after what they are, i.e. "BrentsWifi" not the legality of thier use. Routers provide us with a seperate fields to specify whether the network is public or not. It is silly to have to adopt a stupid naming convention, essentially perverting the standards that IEEE and others worked so hard to develop, simply because some lawyers don't have a proper understanding of protocols.

No DHCP was not invented to invite people to use your wireless network, but since you need some designator to grant permission to use your network, it makes the more sense base the definition of consent on DHCP, rather than what you call your SSID.