ACK! -- CONTINUED

[Jonathan Hutchins]

Quoting "L. Adrian Griffis" <adrian at nerds.org>: 
 
> A locked front door amounts to a statement of your intent not to have 
> just anybody in your house.   
 
True, and computer law does take into account that a system secured with a 
password is a clear sign that it's not intended for open public access.   
 
Still, we argued this distinction when we were considering unsecure wireless  
nodes with default passwords - are these doors really locked, or merely 
latched? 
 
When one of our members logged in to these nodes, there was no talk of 
shotguns or FBI investigations from Brad or anybody else.  Brad's hacker went 
one step more and installed a couple tool kits so it would be easier to come 
back to the system, but didn't do any real damage.   
 
Brad has benefited from the experience in that he will now have a system that 
is better secured against someone who might more immediately apply his access 
to do damage against both Brad's and other systems.  The argument that this 
benefit exceeds any real loss has been suggested here before, and I believe 
has been used as successful defence against "unauthorised access" charges. 
 
Brad is darned lucky that the hacker didn't use his system as a platform to 
launch an attack against someone else, who might have prosecuted Brad for 
leaving an attractive nuciance and contributing to the damage.  That kind of 
prosecution HAS ben suggested here before, and I believe I have read of it 
succeeding.  Brad probably has more attractive resources than some script  
kiddie. 
 
Brad's pissed off.  He feels violated and offended, he doesn't want to fess up 
to his own omissions, he wants to go take his frustrations out on some kid 
instead taking responsibility for his own system.  Like many small 
businessmen, he's all for draconian government action when he's the "victim", 
but he'd probably scream his head off if the feds required that he certify his 
system as secure before allowing him to charge for it's services. 
 
We have to be very careful that our laws and policies aren't set by people who 
are trying to shift attention from their own oversights.  Yeah, great, let's 
get the National Security Agency after this hacker, send him to jail.  What, 
you want complete traffic logs from my system so you can track other hackers?  
That's unamerican! 

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