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User Charged With Felony For Using Fake Name On MySpace
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Jul 07, 2008 02:53 PM
from the understand-before-you-prosecute dept.
from the understand-before-you-prosecute dept.
Recently a user, Lori Drew, was charged with a felony for the heinous crime of pretending to be someone else on the Internet. Using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Lori was charged for signing up for MySpace using a fake name. "The access to MySpace was unauthorized because using a fake name violated the terms of service. The information from a "protected computer" was the profiles of other MySpace users. If this is found to be a valid interpretation of the law, it's really quite frightening. If you violate the Terms of Service of a website, you can be charged with hacking. That's an astounding concept. Does this mean that everyone who uses Bugmenot could be prosecuted? Also, this isn't a minor crime, it's a felony punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment per count. In Drew's case she was charged with three counts for accessing MySpace on three different occasions."
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News: MySpace Suicide Charges Threaten Free Speech 687 comments
Naturalist recommends a piece up at Ars about a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the EFF, CDT, Public Citizen, and a group of 14 law professors in the case of Lori Drew, who posed as a teenage boy to harass another teen online, eventually driving her to suicide. (We've discussed the case a few times.) "[The amicus brief argues] that violating MySpace's Terms of Service agreement shouldn't be considered criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The groups believe that if the mother, Lori Drew, is prosecuted using CFAA charges, the case could have significant ramifications for the free speech rights of US citizens using the Internet."
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I'm George Bush (Score:5, Funny)
What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Informative)
This is about the girl who committed suicide.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24670474/ [msn.com]
And I agree. I think they should have taken a different angle in the prosecution.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Interesting)
>_ Yet another thing where someone did something heinous, and can't be charged for it, because there was no law against it.
As sick as what she did, I don't see how faking an identity in order to harass someone until the point that they kill themselves would not be covered under like, involuntary manslaughter at the very least.
At the very least, I'm sure there are laws protecting people against other people sending harassing and intimidating emails. I know it happened at college (almost every other year, there was a story about someone who faked an email address in order to harass someone.)
Unfortunately, if nothing else sticks, then TOO BAD. The protection of "everyone is equal in the eyes of the law" is that laws shouldn't be jury-rigged to punish someone for something that was otherwise something not illegal.
I recall there was a problem in Enumclaw with a man who would film himself having intercourse with a horse, and eventually ended up puncturing his intestines and died from it. As a result, prosecutors tried to get his friend who was filming for something, anything, but there were no real laws against bestiality at the time. So, they had to go with a misdemeanor or something of "animal abuse". Either way, they changed the law to ensure that someone couldn't do it again, or anymore.
So, the state they're in needs to pass a new law, saying that creating a false identity for the express purpose of harassing someone else is illegal. BOOM, problem solved for the future. Does it suck that she gets off? Yeah, it does, but that's how law is supposed to work.
But then, the only way we got Capone in jail was with tax-evasion... so...
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have a woman in the office who gets offended if she sees two people talking quietly - because she just assumes that they're talking about her.
So, if she gets depressed about this and kills herself, you'd want everyone in the office to be charged with involuntary manslaughter?
You have to base laws on the act and not on the effect the act has on someone.
Parent
Contracts of adhesion & seeing what sticks. (Score:5, Interesting)
As sick as what she did, I don't see how faking an identity in order to harass someone until the point that they kill themselves would not be covered under like, involuntary manslaughter at the very least.
They're just doing what any good prosecutor does -- throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks.
That said, I think this is a real loser for the prosecution. There's no way the Supreme Court is going to let people be criminally liable for failing to obey a contract of adhesion. That's just madness. I doubt that this'll survive even at the trial level if her defense attorney hasn't forget everything about unconscionability since graduating law school years ago.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Creating permanent law to address temporary or one-off social problems or self-destructionism is exactly why our legal system is so screwed up today.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they do. They're not interested in enforcing this in general, but if you pull a stupid, nasty stunt that turns out worse than you'd imagined and they're under public pressure to do something to you (as is the case here), they have something in their pockets with which to charge you.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Having laws which are only enforced at certain times or against certain people is folly. The authorities love it because it gives them leeway to enforce whatever rules they make up, under penalty of being convicted for a "crime" everybody commits. It's easy to see how this can lead to abuse; for example imagine a racist cop who pulls over only black people for speeding. Making the rules is the job of the legislature, not the police or the judicial branch. Laws must be defined precisely and enforced consistently. If there is a law that sometimes shouldn't be enforced, then it should be changed so as to explicitly exclude those times.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, it sets a precedent, and every precedent shows up somewhere else, always more stringently enforced.
US law used to say that using any name one chooses was not illegal as long as it was not for the purposes of fraud.
E.g, if I called myself Tom Cruise and never made any attempt at connecting myself with THE Tom Cruise of acting semi-fame, I'm fine. "Are you THE..." "No I am not." End of problem.
If I went online as "Tom Cruise" and tried selling "Katie's used panties" for $100 each, well, that's fraud, and that makes the use of the name illegal.
The question here is if MySpace would have provided their service to this woman under her "real" name, or did they only do so because of the name she used. If they would have provided the service under any name she used, then there is no fraud. She got nothing she would not have gotten otherwise.
This charge is chilling. I have no doubt nobody expects my birth certificate to contain the words "Obfuscant", and "oahazmatt" doesn't contain that as his legal name, either, I expect.
It actually sets two bad precedents. One is that using a fake name is a felony. The other is that websites can determine when someone is committing a felony, instead of the legislature.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite right. I don't expect this to be a regularly enforced rule. I believe it's more like getting Al Capone for Tax Evasion.
The problem is that in the wrong hands, this law would make an Al Capone out of EVERYONE. If they need to address a specific case, then make the law for that specific case!
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This, instead, is like going after Al Capone not even for tax evasion, but for tearing the tag off his mattress.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree.
Does MySpace actually take any action to verify any of the personal details entered during account creation? Most sites required account activation based upon your e-mail address, and that is all. They send an activation e-mail to verify an identity. I personally have never received snail mail or even a phone call from MySpace asking me to prove any of the identity information that I entered was accurate. If MySpace takes absolutely no action whatsoever to verify a persons actual identity for their hundreds of thousands (millions?) of users then this seems like extraordinarily selective enforcement of the TOS.
MySpace TOS also states:
This Agreement is accepted upon your use of the MySpace Website
Seemingly they want to hold you to an agreement that you didn't even necessarily agree to. If your server keeps sending me pages upon request I'd like to know how that is not authorized use? You can revoke that authorization only if I actually agree to your TOS, IMO.
BTW, does using a proxy or anonymizer count as impersonating another person or using a false identity? Is it a felony? What if a friend is logged into MySpace and I browse the site using their computer? Is that a felony? Is it two separate felonies because one of us broke the TOS by letting someone else use their account and the other used an account that wasn't theirs to browse a few pages? What if I type a funny message on their messenger? What if I enter accurate account information but mistype my address or phone number? That's also in breach of the TOS. Is that a felony?
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Slow Down, Cowboy (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the people that make laws have absolutely ANY idea how the internet works and is used?
First of all, nobody's making a law here. This is a grand jury (12 ordinary people) getting persuaded to indict Drew based on a weird legal theory that probably won't stand up in court.
So if this indictment isn't going anywhere, why issue it? Because millions of people are pissed off about the suicide of Megan Meier [wikipedia.org], which occurred after she was humiliated via that bogus MySpace account. Of course, using an online account to humiliate somebody isn't illegal (if it were, we'd all be accessing Slashdot from jail!), so all this outrage had nowhere to go — until a creative Federal prosecutor came up with this ToS theory. Which, as I said, will probably go nowhere. Lawyers come up with strange legal theories. Judges shoot them down. Happens every day. That's why we have judges.
People need to dial back the outrage. Drew was allegedly pissed at Meier over some stupid teenage thing that happened between Meier and Drew's daughter. Then millions of people got pissed at Drew and demand that she be thrown in jail, never mind what the law says. Now you're pissed at some half-assed legal maneuver whose only really purpose is to appease all the people who are pissed at Drew. Too much pissedness, not enough thinking. Chill out, America!
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Funny)
You appear to be using an alias, would like to come with us for a little while. -TLA(Three Letter Agency)
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You appear to be using an alias, would like to come with us for a little while. -TLA(Three Letter Agency)
Funny, but it brings up a good point.
I was under the impression that using an Alias is not a crime, unless you are using it to perform an illegal act.
Is this no longer the case?
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Signing up with a false name should only be fraud if one party can show financial harm or intent to cause damage. Otherwise, it is simply a breach of contract, which falls squarely into civil, not criminal law. I'd bet money that this case will be laughed out of court. At least on the surface, this screams prosecutorial misconduct.
That said, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is pretty broken, particularly with the "PATRIOT" Act "enhancements". They pretty thoroughly make working with computers into a minefield. Nearly everyone on the Internet has probably been on the wrong side of it at least once. Basically, it's a law designed to ensure that everyone is a criminal so that they can screw people over if you get on their bad side. Sadly, this could be interpreted as falling into the list of things that are criminal acts under that law.
What makes this particularly bizarre is that the only reason this is in any way a criminal act is because of the incidental use of MySpace as a vehicle. The same sort of attacks could have driven this person to suicide without that technological help and it would have been legal. In effect, the CFaAA basically boils down to "illegal on the Internet" laws, which is really idiotic. Something legal in person should be legal on the Internet, regardless of the inadvertent side effect of driving some kid to suicide. If you want to make it illegal on the Internet, it should also be illegal to do that same thing IRL. The Internet certainly shouldn't be held to a higher standard, and given the lack of any real verifiable identity on the Internet, should generally be held to a much lower standard.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be a perfectly valid reason for a company to delete an account. It's not a good reason to charge somebody with a felony.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't give a flying fuck if IMDB wants to sell my personal info in order to allow me the privilege of posting a review saying that some movie sucked.
I really don't give a flying fuck if Myspace or Youtube or Facebook want me to provide personal info they can use or sell in return for the privilege of showing me advertisements.
If Target required me to let them photocopy my driver's license for the privilege of buying groceries from them, I'd give them a fake ID just out of principal. When stores want me to sign up for a "shoppers card" so they can track me just for the privilege of being able to pay normal prices instead of the inflated ones, I sign up with a fake address and the name Mickey Mouse. Out of principal.
If they don't like that and don't want my business and want to ban me - fine, I'll shop somewhere else. If they don't ban me, then I'll patronize them and continue to flout their bullshit and intrusive policies.
But if they want to have me arrested, then we have a serious problem.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why they couldn't have charged her with some form of harassment, endangering/abusing a minor, or any other number of things. I guess the prosecution saw violating the TOS as the easy way out.
Are you telling me that if she verbally abused that girl in person to the point where she killed herself that it would be A-OK by the law simply because she wasn't violating a TOS?
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless there's a case for criminal harassment, it's just that no charges be filed against someone for 'inciting' suicide.
Committing suicide is an inherently irrational act. It's not anyone's fault but the person who does it.
If people could be held responsible for 'inciting' suicide, it'd be terrible. Imagine, you break up with your girlfriend and she decides to do something stupid, and suddenly you're to blame. Imagine, you tease someone a little, as is normal among friends, but that person takes it too seriously and a court finds that you've incited suicide. Imagine you do nothing, but this girl has a crush on you and kills herself because she thinks she can't even talk to you.
If there's a criminal act, such as criminal harassment (a very tough charge to make stick), or slander or libel, then charge for that. Don't charge for the consequences where someone else makes a very stupid, irrational decision.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Build a web site with a fine-print ToS that prohibits visiting from any OS but <pick your favorite alternative OS, like, I don't know, Haiku [haiku-os.org] perhaps>.
2) Paste links to your site all over the web.
3) Search your web server logs for evidence of connections from other operating systems, in violation of your ToS.
4) ???
5) Profit!!!
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slander is a crime. Fraud is a crime. Already. The name used is irrelevant.
But say, it was to impersonate a person's friend, in order to lure them to a location to kill them, then maybe fifteen years isn't enough.
Conspiracy to commit murder is a crime. Murder is a crime. Already. The name used is irrelevant.
Few, if any, judges would impose the highest sentence for a minor case.
Is this a minor case? Someone died. Is that less a crime than your colleague not getting a promotion?
Also, there is a significant difference between being charged with a crime and being convicted of one.
Tell that to someone who's life is turned upside down because they had the laws twisted into a grotesque form just so they could be charged with something, anything, because what they had done was not actually a crime. Tell that to Steve Jackson, or anyone else whose business has been ransacked and destroyed because of a raid from the government looking for evidence of the crime he was charged with.
Tell that to the Duke lacrosse players.
The conviction of the prosecutor in the latter case is rare. Having a precedent like this in the books will make any case of prosecutorial misconduct for whipping up a frenzy over a "fake name" that much less likely, if not impossible.
This is bad precedent, bad application of marginal law.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all. This is a serious issue about which I care.
The point of the law, I assume, is to make it difficult to commit the crimes you mention.
The point of the law is to enact a penalty for committing certain crimes. While there are certain laws that try to make it harder to break others (prohibition on buying certain chemicals so it is harder to make meth, for example), the laws involved here don't. A law against fraud does not make it harder to commit fraud, only that it can be punished when it is.
Your assertion is a lesser degree of saying, well, carrying an assault rifle into the post office shouldn't be a crime because attempted murder is already a crime.
Untrue. My "assertion" is that the law used to be that you could use any name you wished as long as it was not for the purposes of committing fraud. My use of the handle I am using here does not intimidate or scare any reasonable person; it does not make you fear me or do anything out of the ordinary (like cross to the other side of the street). Carrying an assault rifle is already a crime by itself. Carrying one into the post office is not "attempted murder".
I wasn't referring to my example but to the case mentioned in the article.
Comparative words like "major" and "minor" don't mean anything unless they are compared to something else. On a planet where there is no crime at all, stepping on the flowers is a capital offence (and Wesley should have been executed, it would have saved a lot of trouble in the future.) You were saying that the five year sentence would not be issued for a minor crime; most people I know would not call a crime where someone died a minor crime.
but I would argue being charged with a crime and then convicted is worse than just being charged.
A conviction brings some finality to the process. It is a spot from which you can try to rebuild your life. Being "charged" means you are always under suspicion, your property is always "evidence", and your life is open to even more searches for "evidence". "Being charged" means your name is in the papers and you haven't had the chance to clear yourself in a court of law yet.
I was merely pointing out the inaccuracy of that statement, and trying to illustrate that there needs to be leeway in the range of punishment for any crime.
I agree.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't want to be photographed at the baseball game, you won't be arrested for covering your face with a baseball cap as the photographer snaps the picture.
You won't be sued for breach of contract if you cover your eyes during the scary/gross parts of the horror film.
Enter false information on the Internet site that wants to add you to their e-mail marketing list -- and the e-mail lists of their 1000 closest friends -- and you can be sentenced to 5 years in jail.
It's not the same.
Parent
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point though is that nowhere was there anything remotely resembling "unauthorized access of a computer". This was nothing but regular bullying done over the internet.
The equivalent of this is the popular girls in high school convincing the local star to be friendly with the ugly girl, only to humiliate her in the most public fashion possible. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is not the proper way to deal with this.
Parent
Re:Commonsense... (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic, it would be okay to go after someone for driving a car, as long as they drove the car over a few living bodies (whereas the crime is not in driving the car, but in driving the car over the bodies).
If you prosecute one person for the use of a pseudonym, you really need to prosecute everybody for the use of a pseudonym.
(see, I'm comfortable with prosecuting all tax evasion, I'm not comfortable with prosecuting all use of a pseudonym)
Parent
Well, drive a girl to suicide... (Score:5, Insightful)
Drive a girl to commit suicide, and get prosecuted for loggin in under a fake name...
I don't know whats worse, the ACTUAL crime that isn't criminal, or the prosecution under criminal statutes for something which shouldn't be considered a crime?
Re:Well, drive a girl to suicide... (Score:5, Insightful)
Our society has gotten lazy with law enforcement. Proving that somebody commented THE crime is hard, and making all really bad behavior is hard. So, we just make it a crime to do silly normal things and selectively enforce the laws. EVERYBODY in America is a criminal - do you think you go through a single day without violating SOMETHING in the Code of Federal Regulations, or any aw passed by any legislature in the last 200 years that hasn't been repealed, or anything contrary to common law? Plus, those laws make a convenient excuse for performing searches/etc (your honor, the grass looked taller than 2.3 inches so I knocked on the front door, and in plain sight it looked like there might have been an illegally-copied CD sitting on the table, and when I walked in to grab it I noticed some cigarette packages on the table in the other room so I went over to check their seals and then I noticed the lamp that could also be used to grow weed and so I called in SWAT to bust open every wall in the place...).
The job of the cops is to figure out who the bad guy is, and the job of the prosecutor is to figure out something in those aforementioned library-filling tomes to pin them with. Gotta love it!
Parent
Re:Well, drive a girl to suicide... (Score:5, Funny)
Drive a girl to commit suicide, and get prosecuted for loggin in under a fake name...
Yeah, what's the deal with that? That's like "Orchestrate the St. Valentine's Massacre, and get prosecuted for tax evasion." Just so friggin' wrong....
Sincerely,
A. Capone
Parent
Re:Well, drive a girl to suicide... (Score:5, Interesting)
How it usually works is that they'll charge you with everything possible in the hopes that you'd rather plead guilty and get 10 years instead of taking a chance with a trial and getting 30 years. Whether you're innocent or not doesn't matter. What this really amounts to is punishing you for exercising your constitutionally guaranteed right to a trial. Plea bargaining is damned abusive, and should not be allowed.
Parent
Guilty of Extremely Bad Behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
This is, of course, the Lori Drew who worked hard online to bully and demoralize a teenage girl to the point where she committed suicide.
The question is, since no laws exist which would allow her successful prosecution for her actual offense, why prosecute her for a violation of a site's TOS, which would establish a dangerous precedent for many users who simply don't want a site to have their private information?
This case belongs in civil court, not criminal. Let the dead girl's parents sue Lori Drew, prove their case, if possible, and collect monetary damages.
Re:Guilty of Extremely Bad Behavior (Score:5, Interesting)
What monetary damages? Millions from a woman who probably has more debt than assets? While I agree the setting of precedent is kinda scary, I think the woman should be punished as a criminal in every way possible to punish her for directly driving a girl to suicide. Then again, I think what she did should be criminal - psychological harassment - but, I don't write the laws...
Parent
And that is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is why we have so many bad laws. You're essentially saying "I want blood and I don't care what the wider effect on society is."
Sometimes the first person to commit a particular type of crime will simply need to be left unpunished. The proper thing to do is to pass a new law that specifically targets the bad behavior without catching normal behavior in a dragnet.
Allowing prosecutors to stretch an existing law so that it can target largely harmless behavior is not a good idea.
If you like that sort of behavior then why not just pass a law that says "prosecutors are allowed to punish anyone with 5 years imprisonment for any reason" and then allow them to selectively punish people whenever they do something nasty that isn't illegal. What could possibly go wrong?
Parent
Not that it makes it any better... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems that because of that, IMO, the feds are out to nail her on whatever they can, not because of a site's terms of use policy. Though this would set a terrifying precedent.
Not that bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Patriot Act, Telco Immunity, now this. (Score:5, Insightful)
I should post this as AC...
Lori Drew is reprehensible. But we HAVE laws for harassment and disorderly conduct and libel. These can all be applied. There are even laws regarding prank phone calls (which might be best used as reference here). We DO NOT need new precedents that reduce the ability of the individual to access information anonymously.
See...we have the first amendment that guarantees the freedom of speech, press, and religion. What we don't have is a guarantee of unfettered access to information. Using fake accounts for access to some websites is de riguer on the internet. Everyone does it for a WIDE variety of reasons (dont want to get caught fucking someone else, dont want to get caught looking up c4 recipies, dont want to get spam).
Damn...imagine the implications for 10minutemail.com
wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read the indictment, and that's not what it says. The relevant federal law requires that the unauthorized access to be done in furtherance of some tortious or criminal act. To extort money, to cause physical injury, to get government secrets, to damage the computer, etc. In this case, the defendant gained unauthorized access to myspace to intentionally inflict emotional harm on this girl. Now whether that qualifies as "physical injury," I don't know; they might have to show that the defendant intended the girl to physically hurt herself or sustain injury as a result of the abuse. But even if it gets thrown out, it is still close enough to justify bringing the charge in the first place. No, it is not a symbol of the horrible legal oppression everyone suffers here. I am not especially pro-prosecutory; in fact, I almost joined the public defender's office after law school, and I am very skeptical of prosecutors in general. But I'm also sick of the ridiculous overreaction everyone here has everytime anyone anywhere is charged with a crime.
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me enlighten you... "Ethanol-fueled" is a screen name, alias, or nick name. When you sign-up for Myspace you are asked to complete a form with your name and identifying information, however you can choose to have a separate and unrelated screen name, alias or nick name. My Yahoo e-mail address, for example, has no relation to my personal name, but I provided my personal name to Yahoo to sign-up for the service.
Since everyone is going haywire about this, let's look at an offline example. If I complete a loan/job/cell phone application and indicate that my name is George Bush (it's not) and provide other false information, I could face legal consequences for providing such false information. Should we get all up in arms about that? Most companies are going to take additional steps to verify my identification before they give me a loan/job/cell phone. Even though they will verify my identity that doesn't make me less liable for providing false information. Either the user is responsible for providing accurate information or the company is responsible for verifying the accuracy of the information provided. Do you want MySpace/Newegg/TigerDirect to call references, run a credit report, or take additional measures to verify your identity or do you want them to accept your promise that you are accurately representing who you are?
Parent
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Yes it is a bad law. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a bad law. It is a unique and inventive use of a law intended to punish people who crack into systems.
It doesn't matter if it can or is intended to be used against genuine criminals. If it is so broadly written that it can be used to turn a minor breach of contract into a federal felony it is a bad law, period.
Breaking a contract is a matter of civil law not criminal, and is punishable only by restitution of actual and punitive damages, not prison time. The actual damages caused to MySpace by her actions are at most harm to their reputation, but even that they would have a hard time showing. The proper punishment for false registration in this case is no more than terminating the account.
And, they have a point as the terms of service for MySpace state that, in order to use the service, one must provide correct information.
People can put just about anything into their Terms of Service. Can you honestly say that you have even read every TOS for every site you have membership on? Do you honestly believe that it is reasonable to charge someone with a felony for not following any random thing that is put into the TOS? Do you honestly think that providing a false name is the same level of crime as hacking a system? Because that is exactly what the prosecution is arguing in this case, and from reading the law, that seems to be what it says.
Parent
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Interesting)
If you abuse this law (meant to deter actual computer crime) to criminally enforce the TOS of any random website, it sets such a bad precedent that we can basically jail anyone that uses the web, a phone, or any device with a computer in it such as a car or a washing machine.
The biggest problem, besides the overreaching law, is that any idiot can -- and does -- write his own TOS.
Parent
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Insightful)
There are SEVERAL things they could get her on: criminal child abuse, coercion of a minor, etc. But no, that would be too much work. Instead, they want to give her felony charges for violating the TOS of a website. I'm all for making sure she's punished, but this is not the way. Have the DA actually DO HIS JOB and not hoist her on something that can set a precedent which can be later used to fuck all of us at will...
Parent
Re:Listen up (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiiight. Your exactly the reason why this law is being abused.
Your emotional reaction to this young girls death has clouded your judgment. You even admit that the "American Legal system" is "messed up" with regards to technology, but have no problems allowing the law to "malfunction" as long as it hurts Lori Drew. That's hypocritical and a desire for nothing less than mob justice.
What you don't understand is that this would create precedent. This is bigger than Lori Drew and it is bigger than that poor little girl who committed suicide. I am not an "unfeeling monster" either. That little girls death was a horrible tragedy, Lori Drew's actions were unconscionable, and it is a sad commentary on just how degraded society has become.
Terms of Service is a legal contract, a CIVIL agreement, between two parties. To say that the deliberate obsfucation of information while signing that agreement is a felony is outright lunacy. It is at most fraudulent and MySpace would have to prove what damages it incurred as a result of said fraud IN A CIVIL COURT.
Lori Drew's actions with respect to MySpace (and only MySpace) were not remotely "hacking" and not remotely criminal in any sense whatsoever. The only action she committed that should be investigated by the DA is contributing to that little girl's death. I don't know what criminal laws apply to that, but hacking is not one of them.
So although I can understand why you are angry and upset at Lori Drew for her actions, and I empathize with the parents and family of the little girl, it DOES NOT JUSTIFY anyones desire to apply criminal law incorrectly to a civil dispute.
If this precedent were to be created it allow ALL websites the ability to verify your information and forward any disputes about its veracity to the local DA. Having the DA prosecute people for "lying" to MySpace, Google, Yahoo, HotMail, Slashdot, etc. is not in the best interests of our society.
Quite simply put, the fact that Slashdot has NO accurate information regarding me and my account is NOT hacking and it is NOT a crime. If you believe it is, be careful. All somebody has to do is hack your connection at home, create a fake profile at MySpace, notify the authorities and you will be playing the "Mammas and the Pappas" in some prison.
P.S - For those that might not get "Mammas and the Pappas" its a joke and use your imagination.
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Re:just respect the Terms of Service (Score:5, Insightful)
And just how many people have a) the time to read 20 pages of small print and b) the education to understand all the legalese ?
Simply put, NO one but lawyers or lawyer wannabes reads the terms of service because the average man on the street can't understand it
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Re:Anti-Pedophile Law? (Score:5, Insightful)
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