ACK! -- CONTINUED

[L. Adrian Griffis]

On Sun, 20 Apr 2003, Bradley Miller wrote:
> At 08:20 AM 4/20/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >They didn't steal anything from you.  At most, they found a back door 
> >unlocked,
> >came in and jimmied the lock so they could get in whenever they wanted.  They
> >didn't even make a mess or spray grafitti on the walls.  As a physical crime,
> >it would probably get even less interest from the police than you got.
> 
> That's not exactly accurate.  They came in, changed how the entire 
> operating system works, and then left a "backdoor" for them to come back 
> anytime they want.  They also left a program so that computer could be used 
> to attack other computers.  How is that not a crime?   If I yanked out the 
> ATM from the local bank and put in my own ATM, that functioned the same but 
> instead put everyone's ATM passcode into my own account . . . wouldn't that 
> be stealing also?

It sounds like what you are really trying to say is that what
they did *should* be a crime, and as far as that statement goes,
I think most of us agree with you.  But things don't become
crimes because it seems like they should be;  The courts and
legislatures haven't grappled with all the required issues
well enough to safely criminalize all the things we would like
them to criminalize.  An example of REALLY BAD law in this
regard is the State of Oregon's anti-hacking laws.  They are
so vague that if you play Solitare on the company computers,
and if playing games on the company computers is a violation
of company policy, you could be convicted of a class C felony.

While it's tempting to wish for criminalization of these
clearly imoral acts that we've been discussing, I'm not sure
we will like what we get out of the Congress and the state
legislatures if they use their current understanding of
computer issues.

Adrian