Should Virus Distribution be Illegal? 436
mccormi writes "In a guest editorial on Newarchitect Sarah Gordon looks at whether posting malicious code should be allowed and what steps could be taken to stop it. What's worrisome though is that restrictions on malicious code doesn't take into account who it's malicious against and what truly defines malicious." Note that she's not talking about actually infecting computers, but merely making the code available for others to examine (and for some of them, no doubt, to try to spread in the wild).
Re:Its not distribution, it is use (Score:2, Informative)
So far you've gotten a lot of responses from people who claim this is illegal, but are making all sorts of wild and inaccurate claims as to why. Allow me to refer you to the specific statutes:
Yes, sad as it may be, these laws make mere advocacy of ideas a crime. Read more about them at this page about the Smith Act trials [uiuc.edu].