Jailtime Not The Answer For Cybercrime

from the clueless-legislators-at-work dept

A good article talking about the various attempts that are being pushed forward these days to jail hackers as if they were terrorists (including the potential for life imprisonment). The article points out that the law never puts the responsibility on whoever maintains the server or the systems involved which should have had better security and better backup procedures, and always blames the curious hacker who half the time probably doesn’t even realize what they’re doing.


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Comments on “Jailtime Not The Answer For Cybercrime”

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3 Comments
Mike (profile) says:

Re: Jail time is wrong for thieves

Aha. Good point… I am not saying that someone who breaks into someone’s computer isn’t deserving of some sort of punishment. However, the understanding that lawmakers have of what “hacking” is, is problematic – and they’re likely to send someone to jail for life for doing something harmless. That’s the problem…

Mark Fox says:

Re: Re: Jail time is wrong for thieves

The article had the example “Let’s say someone hacks into the local power grid and, as a result, a hospital loses power to its critical patient care units”.

The punishment the hacker/cracker should get should depend on their intentions just as there is a different between murder and causing death by negligence, etc. If a kid was checking out the power company and accidently turned off part of the grid that is one thing, terrorists are another. However the degree of responsiblity the power company had to protect itself, and no matter what steps they took, that does not stop the power who hacked in from being responsible for their actions.

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