**************************************************************************** >C O M P U T E R U N D E R G R O U N D< >D I G E S T< *** Volume 1, Issue #1.02 (April 2, 1990) ** **************************************************************************** MODERATORS: Jim Thomas / Gordon Meyer REPLY TO: TK0JUT2@NIU.bitnet SUBSCRIBE TO: INTERNET:TK0JUT2@NIU.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu COMPUTER UNDERGROUND DIGEST is an open forum dedicated to sharing information among computerists and to the presentation and debate of diverse views. -------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Contributors assume all responsibility for assuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. -------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************** *** Computer Underground Digest Issue #1.02 / File 2 of 3 *** *************************************************************** ------------------------------------ Some English Members of Parliament seem as hell-bent on hysteria-mongering as some here in the U.S. The following was passed on from a Southerner who thought it of interest %eds%. -------------------------------------------------------- Civil Liberties HACKED TO PIECES Jolyon Jenkins Refuses to Panic over Computer Crime %From NEW STATESMAN & SOCIETY, Feb. 9, 1990: p. 27% Why should anyone other than spotty youths and hi-tech fraudsters care about new legislation to ban computer hacking? For this reason: laws made in response to moral panic usually fail to catch the real villains and end up pushing back civil liberties for everyone else. The Computer Misuse Bill, published two weeks ago by Tory MP Michael Colvin and likely to become law, is just such a measure. The debate over hacking is like the panic over video nasties: a new technology which people view with suspicion, ill-founded anecdotal research, and overblown language. Emma Nicholson MP, who set this hare running with a private member's bill last year, is the chief culprit. In a recent interview with the SUNDAY CORRESPONDENT MAGAZINE she said that hackers were "malevolent, nasty, evil-doers" who "fill the screens of amateur %computer% users with pornography". She claimed that European Greens hack into the comupters of large companies and use the information they extract to carryout "bombings and fires". When asked to justify the allegations she produced a back copy of an anarchist magazine called INSURRECTION, whose contents fell somewhat short of the required proof, and then cited "unofficial secret-service trackers close to the Dutch government", who could not be named. Nicholson has produced a dossier of "hacking incidents" that she insists are so confidential that she refuses to reveal the sources to anyone, even the Law Commission, which recently completed an investigation of the subject. This makes it hard to assess the quality of her information. But one of the cases is identifiable and does not inspire confidence in the rest. It concerns someone who allegedly put a "logic bomb" in the computer system of a British airline. This is almost certainly the case of Jim McMahon who was prosecuted last year at Isleworth Crown Court. After three and a half weeks the judge stopped the case because he was satisfied that McMahon was innocent and that the most likely suspect was the chief prosecution witness. The police had fingered the wrong man--not because of any gap in the law but because they carried out their investigation incompetently. Nonetheless, the case apparently remains in the Nicholson dossier. The Colvin bill proposes to punish with six months in prison anyone who gains, or tries to gain, "unauthorised access" to information stored on a computer. Emma Nicholson is not wholly to blame, because the English Law Commission produced similar proposals last year. But they are still objectionable, for several reasons. First, it is like criminalising trespass. Someone who gains unauthorised access to PHYSICAL premises has not normally thereby committed a criminal offence, but only a tort, and it is up to the aggrieved part to start civil proceedings against the trespasser. Second, it means that information held on computer becomes property. In general, information is not protected by law: if I steal a piece of paper that has valuable facts written on it, it is only the paper I steal, not the facts. Information held in confidence can be protected (to an increasing extent) by law; copyright protects the FORM in which information is held; but you cannot copyright a fact--and the Colvin bill erodes that principle. Third, it won't prevent hacking. Emma Nicholson admitted as much in a debate at Imperial College last month. But she said that it was important that society should express its moral disapproval of hacking. Experience suggests that unenforceable moral disapproval is as likely to lead to an increase in the frowned-on activity as to a reduction. Fourth, almost all serious computer misuse can be brought before the courts under existing laws, such as fraud, criminal damage, or theft of electricity. And in a few years time, hacking by telephone will become virtually impossible, because System X phone exchanges will be able to tell the manager of a computer system the number someone is calling from. Many successful hacks depend on nothing more sophisticated than correctly guessing a password--such as when I correctly guessed that an ITN journalist had chosen as his password "ITN". The remedy may be equally straightforward: use less easily guessable passwords. Further restricting freedom of information is not the answer. ---- END ---- =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ + END THIS FILE + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+===+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=  Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253 12yrs+