[San-Diego-pm] FWD: [IP] more on Hard time? Not for cyber criminals

C. Abney cabney at ucsd.edu
Wed Aug 18 16:32:13 CDT 2004


I tell that story to anyone that betrays he or she is thinking of
applying for a job at Intel.

I'll bet I'm not alone.

Yours,

Charles

On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 13:46, Joe Crawford wrote:
> I thought this was remarkable... and definitely Perl-related.
> 
> 	- Joe Crawford
> 	  <http://artlung.com/>
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 16:33:42 -0400
> From: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
> To: Ip <ip at v2.listbox.com>
> Subject: [IP] more on Hard time? Not for cyber criminals
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: merlyn at stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
> Date: August 18, 2004 4:15:02 PM EDT
> To: dave at farber.net
> Cc: ip at v2.listbox.com
> Subject: Re: [IP] more on Hard time? Not for cyber criminals
> 
> >>>>> "Dave" == Dave Farber <dave at farber.net> writes:
> 
> Dave> p. 224 Texas Computer Crimes Act, which is not substantially
> Dave> different
> Dave> from that of any other state, . by [these laws] looking at
> someone.s
> Dave> digital watch without permission could be a felony.
> Dave> ------------------------------------------
> 
> When I give my "Just another convicted Perl hacker" talk, I point out that
> under Oregon's ORS 164.377, the law under which I was made a felon,
> unauthorized access to a computer is a misdemeanor, and unauthorized
> alteration is a felony.  But then I go on to point out that "computer" is
> pretty much everything with a CPU (which is nearly everything these days),
> and "unauthorized" is never qualified.
> 
> Which means that in Oregon (like many states), if you ring my cell phone
> (which is a computer, and you're now altering it: draining the battery,
> using up my prepaid minutes, adding to the "recent calls" log), and you're
> not "authorized" (whatever that means, since it could mean so many
> things), you're a felon.
> 
> Think that's a joke?  During one of our pre-trial motions, the judge said
> (now part of caselaw) that "altering the background screen on an
> employer's computer" would qualify under this law.  Yes, set your
> preferences wrong (or at all), and you're going to jail!
> 
> The laws that have been passed are not correlated with reality.  They come
> from a fantasy world where computers were in big ivory towers, and even
> then, they didn't make sense.  They also speak of "authorization", but
> that could mean so many things.  Do I have explicit authorization to call
> your cell phone?  If you publish it? If I've been annoying you recently?
> If I don't have permission, where do you need to publish that fact as
> sufficient warning?
> 
> It's just crazy.  All crazy.  And I'm a felon because of a
> misunderstanding exactly along these lines, and it's cost me dearly.
> 
> (By the way, I will give this 90-minute talk wherever invited, as long as
> you can help me cover my costs.  I promise an educational as well as
> entertaining experience.)
> 
> -- 
> Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
> <merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
> See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!
> 
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-- 
Charles Abney
Polymorphism Research Laboratory, 0603
UCSD School of Medicine
9500 Gilman Dr.
La Jolla, CA 92093-0603
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