Hackers are 'Terrorists' Under Ashcroft's New Act 1021
Carlos writes "Most computer crimes are considered acts of terrorism under John Ashcroft's proposed 'Anti-Terrorism Act,' according to this story on SecurityFocus. The Act would abolish the statute of limitations for computer crime, retroactively, force convicted hackers to give the government DNA samples for a special federal database, and increase the maximum sentence for computer intrusion to life in prison. Harboring or providing advice to a hacker would be terrorism as well. This is on top of the expanded surveillance powers already reported on. The bill could be passed as early as this week. I feel safer already."
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
My DNA? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, who wants to take bets that the RIAA get's copyright violaters termed as hackers?
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
But crime punishable by life in prison? With no statute of limitations? Doesn't murder have no statute of limitations and get you life?
There's a difference between 'crime is crime' and having some sense of proportion. geez.
perversion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Break into their computer, and you're instantly labelled a terrorist. Think there's any chance you'll get much less than the maximum penalty of life? Hell, my high school once informally accused me of piracy (which, incidentally, I was not guilty of) just on the basis that I knew enough and therefore could have done it. If there's anything that makes people paranoid, it's hearing that the Big Bad Hacker is right outside their computer's door.
Fair, no?
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Bummer...
Re:Umm, Thats not right... (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you have programming skills, get the fuck out of the States and take your skills with you. Your country obviously doesn't want you anymore."
(Am I now a felon?)
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
History has been forgotten (Score:1, Insightful)
It will be interesting to see how soon all religion is stomped out because of a few off the wall psycho's who think that random acts of death and destruction without announcing intent to do so is a good thing for their religion. At that point, God be merciful to us all...
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, does this mean that we no longer need virus programs and firewalls? I mean, who needs to lock their door when burglary is illegal?
And of course, how does this bode for tech workers? I often have to gain access to a customer's servers. Does this mean a simple "here's some credentials for you to use" is no longer enough? Do I have to have the admin at the customer's site file a contract with his boss and have his boss and himself and myself sign it each and every time I help them out, even if I'm just entering to check their logs because -- hey -- someone might later say it was unauthorized?
Ashcroft can suck my cock -- but we all know these things will be passed. And projects like mozilla.org that have sections on "hacking the code" will become villified for contributing to terrorism. Welcome to the witch-hunts; i'm finding a new line of fucking work.
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
You wouldn't think it was fair to sentence someone who scrawled "Kilroy wuz here '01" on the bathroom wall of a pizza parlor to life in prison, would you? Because that's what this law states: Scrawl your name on any website without the author's permission and be punished as if you were Osama bin Laden's personal hackmeister.
So murder is less of an offense than hacking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:calm down (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:perversion (Score:5, Insightful)
On that, we agree.
Upon reading the draft bill, I'm not happy with all of the provisions in the bill, but I really don't see anything that says "guy with programming sk1llz == terrorist."
I do see an expansion of The List Of Bad Things We Can Do To Felons (such as DNA sampling), but that's a far cry from "all [cr]ackers are terrorists", let alone "all Hackers are now terrorists and will have to give up DNA samples".
Indeed, only crackers who attack "protected systems" (meaning .gov and .mil boxen - not the d00d who hax0rz the average web site) appear to be in line to get their asses handed to them on a silver platter under this Act, and those provisions I can support. (Hell, those are about the only provisions I'd support ;-)
Earlier, I made a post that said "If you've got programming skills, get the hell outa here." I retract that post. This bill, while odious for many means, is not a declaration that American doesn't want its programmers anymore.
Serves me right for replying to /. before reading the fscking article ;-)
Re:Here's the story. (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems a tad broad to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
-Henry
Re:Enough with the whining (Score:2, Insightful)
Crime is crime, yes, but the punishment should fit the crime. Adding a few words to a web page as a publicity stunt should not be punished in the same manner as multiple homicide, or armed robbery, or collaborating on a terrorist attack.
I suppose you'd feel comfortable in a society where the judicial system lopped off criminal's bodyparts, as well? Or caned you silly? No thank you. As it is, I think prison should be for VIOLENT OFFENDERS ONLY. There are many ways to pass a sentence on non-violent offenders, without prison, and without impacting society in such a heavy-handed legal and financial way.
--ksw2
Re:Enough with the whining (Score:1, Insightful)
Why? Whining is about the only right we'll have left if Ashcroft gets his way.
Any crime is bad
Wrong. The 'American Revolution' was against the law.
Do you think it was bad?
while it is law you must obey it
Wrong. I don't have to do anything. I can pee in my neighbors gas tank, I can kick his dog, I can fill cans of Starkist tuna with lye and return them to the shelf at the grocery store, I can steal lollipops from small children, I can burn the flag, I can buy a AR-15 rifle with scope and sit on top of 75 Wall Street and gun down lawyers as the come to work.
I just have to deal with the consequences when I am done.
As for the consequences of the DMCA, well, fuck them. I don't seriously think the MPAA is going to sue me for copying Kenshin episodes to my hard drive so I can swap the DVD-ROM for the second battery. In 1940's Germany it was the law to round up and gas Jews. Am I supposed to sit idly by while people I know are killed?
Re:Enough with the whining (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The answer is simple (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
The difference (Score:3, Insightful)
It's still stupid though.
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem here isn't so much that they're saying that computer crime is illegal - more that the punishment is ridiculously severe. When deciding on a punishment, you have to decide what the aim of punishment is and how best to achieve that aim. In this case however, the law makers seem to have the aim of getting votes and the best method is to be tough on terrorism of any kind. It pulls at the heart strings of the nation so of course it gets votes.
Besides the political goals though, there are two main aims people have for utilising jail terms as punishment. The first is to remove the villian from society so that we can all forget about them and feel safe again - the death penalty is much more effective at achieving this aim so why not just use it? Some countries take this approach and it works, there is almost zero crime because people know if they commit a crime they are either executed or deported. The problem with this approach is twofold, firstly it expects everyone to lead a near perfect life and never make a mistake (think of how many teenagers commit once off offences to look cool and later learn from their mistakes and go on to be useful to society. The other problem is that eventually you punish the wrong guy and there's no way to set him free again.
The other aim for imprisonment is to teach people a lesson so they can rejoin society and live happily with everyone else again. Countries such as the US and Australia (and many others) with long jail terms don't acheive this goal at all well. The revolving door prison system is well known - most offenders wind up committing more crimes and going back into the system. However, countries which use shorter jail terms tend to have much lower crime rates. Instead of being locked up for 20 years and becoming bitter against society, you spend one or two years in a correctional facility where you are taught skills to help you survive in the world, go through drug rehabilitation if needed and work with councellors to deal with a disturbed past that may be haunting you. After that you have a much better chance of coming back out into society and not only abiding by the law, but also contributing to the community. If you think the cost of this approach is just too great, think about the cost of keeping people in prison for those extra 18 years and you'll find it works out a lot cheaper. It is not a 100% effective measure, some people will recommit and you need to have ways to deal with that - either through different methods of punishment or by longer imprisonments. It does however give criminals a chance to learn from their errors and adopt new skills to remove the temptation to recommit. After all, isn't that what punishment is all about?
Re:oh jesus... (Score:2, Insightful)
It is the same problem people had with the outbreak of school violence. They immediately went to blame violent video games as the 'sole' cause. Also, take cell phones and automobile accidents for example. People blamed those, even though they are one of the smallest causes.
In essence, people look for the easiest thing to blame, which usually ends up being technology, since its 'new,' it must be the source of 'new' problems like terrorism, even though there is no true solution or source to blame for such occurances.
Phil Zimmerman harbors TERRORISTS (Score:1, Insightful)
Jon Johansen should immediately pack his bags and disappear to someplace like Argentina due to his work in the massively damaging DeCSS virus.
This is just absurd. Will it survive? Is it just FUD? What the fuck is happening in this world? Where to run? Where to hide? The only option would seem to be Antarctica.
OTOH, worms like Code Red and Nimda will rapidly continue to evolve and become more and more damaging and something very strong will have to be done at some point to check this exponential evolution of worms and distributed DoS attacks if we want the Internet to continue to exist.
Re:The answer is simple (Score:3, Insightful)
What you're saying is that smart people like him, who sometimes use a little poor judgment, should be given life sentences in prison? You're saying that was Randall did is on the same level as murder?
Sure, but what can we do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oddly enough, according to the bill the deciding determiner of whether the unlawful act is a terrorist act is whether or not it was done for financial gain. So hacking a DB of credit card info ISN'T a terrorist act, while snooping around because you want to learn something IS.
I'm sure that violation of the DMCA will be covered under this act soon, as well...
This is nothing new... (Score:5, Insightful)
As David Quinn put it quite eloquently: Quite depressing, really. (The whole text can be found here [ishmael.com], BTW)
But what can you expect when the whole world has bought into the idea that there is absolutely nothing that any one person can do to change things [ishmael.com]?
-- Shamus
Bleah!
Re:The answer is simple (Score:0, Insightful)
Then they came for the the worm writers, and I did not speak out, because I was not a worm writer.
Then they came for the crackers, and I did not speak out, because I was not a cracker.
Then they came for the copyright infringers, and I did not speak out, because I was not a copyright infringer.
Then they came for the encryption users, and I did not speak out, because I was not an encryption user.
Then they came for me, and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
How is that different ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
> Say someone hax0rs an air traffic
> control system, do they deserve life
> imprisonment?
Yes, they do. For attempted murder, not for
computer crime. They should be tried and executed
or imprisoned for the crime, not for the means.
If we raise the computer crime to the level of a
capital offense, we DIMINISH the meaning of the
capital offenses we already have.
Re:perversion (Score:4, Insightful)
Excuse me, but you are quite likely to be wrong. Was your computer, or any computer in your possession, infected with Code Red or Nimda? If so, and if it scanned any computers outside of your state, then it's not really a stretch to say that you were outside of the law.
OK, so as a Slashdot reader, you are less likely to be affected by the above. But how many of your friends were?
Also, this bill will eliminate the statute of limitations on these crimes and allow retroactive prosecution. Therefore, anybody who got Code Red or Nimda can quite plausibly be put in jail for life.
Would they win on defense? Maybe, but they're in jail until the trial is over. And maybe they won't win on defense...
This law hands the power to imprison damn near anyone running Windows IIS over the US government, such that only a lawsuit (inevitably protracted) would get them out.
Who still believes this is about preventing terrorism? What a sick joke! Frankly, I think those proposing this bill are traitors to the United States.
Shifting blame (Score:3, Insightful)
Whistleblower protection with real teeth would be more effective in cleaning up inept government agencies. So would giving the federal Inspectors General the power to fire Federal employees. But no, Ashcroft's not asking for that.
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
And if I drive home drunk and get away with it, what's the harm?
Re:Somebody has to say it, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course this is all well known. Best way to hack into a network? Get a job there as a Janitor and find a computer that wasn't logged out of.
Anyhow, criminal Laws can be divided into two categories, I've always though:
Laws that prohibit things that are bad.
Laws that might make it easier to enforce the former laws.
So, killing people is bad, so it's illegal.
Owning a gun isn't bad, but making that illegal is believed to make it easier to enforce the killing people law.
Copyright theft is bad. Being able to back-up an acrobat document isn't bad, and in Russia is actually a right, but DCMA is supposed ot mkae it easier to enforce the "no stealing copyright materials" law.
Re:Evidence of a social breakdown in the US? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you look into those statistics you've quoted, I'm sure you'll notice that the largest proportion of inmates is in prison for NON-violent crimes. Specifically drug related. The current insanity has lead to pot smokers getting minimum 20 year sentences while killing someone while you were drunk driving may get you probation.
Obviously people have forgotten the lessons learned under prohibition. You remember that one don't you? We made alcohol illegal, even passed a constitutional amendment. What happened? Grandmothers became criminals, prison populations went up, and we provided the funding for the Mafia. We had to pass another constitutional amendment to undo the one we passed to make alcohol legal again.
Parallels anyone? How about pot, cocaine, etc. being illegal. Otherwise law abiding citizens are now criminals, prison populations going up, and we are funding the "Triads", "Columbia drug cartels", "Yakuza", "Jamaican posies", maybe even the "Mafia"
Now that we are treating "intellectual property" as real property, (Hint: it isn't) reading, writing, copying, learning are now criminal activities. Even more otherwise law-abiding citizens will be criminals, prison populations will grow even faster, life will generally suck more.
Oh, and I don't think that the "weapons manufactureres"[sic] have too much control. I don't think they have anything to do with it. If you gave every man and woman in the country a gun, I don't think that the murder rate would go up any, who knows, it along with other crimes might even go down.
Murder, theft, rape, physical property destruction, etc. should be crimes. Prostitution, gambling, smoking (tobacco, pot, etc.), doing other drugs (alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy), "intellectual property" misuse (if that's possible) shouldn't be.
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)