Mr Topp's read-along blog ([info]kalivor) wrote,
@ 2008-12-05 08:14:00
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Current mood:glad I don't live in the US
Current music:Frank Zappa - Little Umbrellas
Entry tags:bullying, commentary, hackers, hacking, news, newsy, stupid, terms of service

We're all hackers!
Have you ever broken the rules in the Terms of Service for a website?

If your answer is yes, you may be a hacker in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Yes -- rather than thinking "cyber-bullying is reprehensible, so let's make it illegal under reasonable circumstances", US authorities instead said "we'd like this person to be punished. Let's try to stretch the definition of an existing law to find a way to punish her." As a result, someone has now been convicted of (essentially) hacking for breaking MySpace's rules.

Anybody else think this is bad?


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[info]tygerdsebat
2008-12-05 02:53 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for the heads up on this one. While I feel that this woman needed to serve time for what she did, I'm not sure this was the best way about it...

(Reply to this)


[info]dairymilk
2008-12-05 04:38 pm UTC (link)
Unfortunately, having "freedom" means having the right to make choices that other people aren't going to like.

I think what she did was beyond reprehensible, but she is hardly the only one responsible for the tragedy. It'd a dangerous precedent - changing laws with the specific intent to go after someone.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]kalivor
2008-12-06 09:45 am UTC (link)
Well, the dangerous precedent is that this law -- without modification -- being used to convict her. It's an anti-hacking law designed to prevent identity theft (and the like) -- the interpretation that breaking MySpace's terms of service is a felony is dangerous.

Laws are modified (by politicians doing their job) to combat specific crimes all the time. And I am sure police and prosecutors scour the law books to find things to charge people with quite frequently as well -- because the bad guys are inventive, after all. Neither of these are dangerous, as is.

However, a judge actually allowing this case to go forward (nevermind ending in a guilty verdict) without considering the consequences sets a dangerous precedent. There is no way that this law intended to make a violation of a website's terms of service into a crime. But it now is -- at least for certain violations.

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