Comments on: UK Hacking Laws

By: SecurityTinker

SecurityTinker — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:04:22 +0000

Security Tool Controversy…

It seems like I will avoid Germany now as well. From GNUCITIZEN:…

By: Security Tool Controversy | GNUCITIZEN

Security Tool Controversy | GNUCITIZEN — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 22:30:32 +0000

[...] year I discussed some of the hacking and security laws in the UK on michaeldaw.org; pdp also discussed this on GNUCITIZEN a few months [...]

By: david.kierznowski

david.kierznowski — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 21:12:43 +0000

Daniel, I was hoping you might have some comments on this, having experienced this firsthand yourself. Thanks for your comments.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 06:29:32 +0000

The CMA is still broken, even with this latest round of updates.

The problem here is the wording, as is most laws. If we take a public web server as our example. The admin has NOT given 1 person specific legal, and authorised, access to visit that site, so in the eyes of the law it is unauthorised.

This line came from the old trespass law and was adapted for the BT hackers (check wikipedia for the whole story). The problem is that the user visiting the website will not no his/her access is unathorised unless there is something telling them that. If you recall the old telnet/ssh banners that most people used, well that was telling them unauthorised access was illegal, but with todays internet, how is that possible?

Not every site has a banner on each page stating unauthorised action is illegal, hence the majority of web users who visit sites which give error messages, are acting illegally under the eyes of the CMA

screwed up law, you bet!

*I spent 1 year looking into the CMA and fighting it in court, so do have a fair chunk of experience when it comes to this mundane piece of badly written law