House OKs Life Sentences For Hackers 972
ByteHog writes "The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Monday to create a new punishment of life imprisonment for malicious computer hackers. The article on MSNBC also mentions that police can conduct internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order. Says a Rep from Texas: 'A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb.'" Other articles can be found here and the text of the bill is available.
The Red Scare Part II (Score:2, Insightful)
Our society may need technology to function but this dependance is going to extremes.
And, of course, what happens to the programmers? If I design a faulty home security system I get sued don't I??
Hmm...
Are you now or have you ever been a hacker?
Okay, this is pretty much it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Run an "unsecured" operating system? You're a terrorist.
Share files? Terrorist.
Complain about corporate abuse? Terrorist.
Demand your Fair Use rights? Terrorist.
Fail to consume your fair share? Terrorist.
In 100 years, when they are picking over the ashes of our civilization wondering what went wrong, this will be the turning point day they decide on...the day when you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a computer.
I don't see how (Score:2, Insightful)
Your civil liberties (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh very nice we can now punish people who commit murder through electronic means, except we can already do this with existing murder laws.
Economy and endanger lives eh? I guess were clear which one is the most important in the eyes of the government by the order those were placed in.
We're doing this to stop terrorism? Oh ok that explains it.
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Has hacking ever killed anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
I like this part.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The sad part is, i doubt many people will fight this. Sure, the media will acknowledge its existance, but will say that it makes life sentences available for hackers who damage our infrastructure, and further hurt digital terrorists in our country (clip of something in there). Nobody will hear about the invasion of privacy stuff. Oh wait--what privacy. Sorry, guess i forgot that its not for your average American Citizen.
Re:Okay, this is pretty much it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Using a(licensed) firearm to shoot soda cans off a fence != crime
Using a(licensed) firearm to shoot someone in the face == crime
Heated hyperbole will not help to advance your cause; only a reasoned consideration of the issues will.
I now jump off my soapbox.
WorldCom (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is that the biggest threat to the internet right now is WorldCom itself....since they own UUnet and are going seriously bankrupt. Of course UUnet will stay alive somehow, either by WorldCom, sold to someone else, or through a government bailout. The major backbones and networks are really in a pretty powerful position, since they control major portions of the internet.
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, looks like they are, just as you said. So why do we need a new law? Does it make a difference what tools are used? It can't see how it should.
Don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, the bill relates to the case of "if the offender knowingly causes or attempts to cause death or serious bodily injury."
Doesn't the USA have laws against this already? I mean, if I murder someone with a frozen banana, it's still murder, you don't need a law saying "you are not allowed to murder someone with a frozen banana". Surely knowingly causing or attempting to cause death or serious bodily injury is currently against the law anyway, however you go about doing it? Why is this law necessary?
Except (Score:5, Insightful)
appropriate "department" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OMFG!! (Score:2, Insightful)
And If you wanted to roll your own car, no problemo. As cars became more or less everybodys-god-given-right, accidents started to happen everywhere and people did die. It will happen! Computers will be as regulated as cars. And it will happen soon. Sooner than we would like.
lazee_coward
What do these names have in common? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pray you never find out the hard way.
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Typical (Score:5, Insightful)
IT'S A BILL
This still needs to go to the Senate and the Pres. Lobby them.
level of sophistication (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure I see how the level of sophistication should affect the sentencing. Does this happen in other crimes? ("He shot her a bit amateurishly, so we'll only give him 5 years"). And why does it make a difference whether its a government computer or not?
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Benjamin Coates
Context people, context... (Score:3, Insightful)
Section 1030(c) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
`(B) if the offender knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death from conduct in violation of subsection (a)(5)(A)(i), a fine under this title or imprisonment for any term of years or for life, or both.'.
If you try to kill somebody you might get a life term, no different to recklessly or knowingly causing death any other way. So you try to crash air traffic control computers you get thrown in jail for life - sorry if I'm not too sympathetic.
Re:Has hacking ever killed anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
In all seriousness, could some one explain to me why we need to crack down on "Cyber Terrorists"? I thought it was the regular, box-cutter-weilding, gun-toting, bomb-making kind that were giving us problems lately. Shouldn't the government be trying to stream line its paperwork processes and attempting to fix internal security problems?
Shouldn't we be working harder to fix existing [nando.net] government agencies that don't work as intended instead of making new ones?
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not unlike hate crime laws, which legislate additional penalties for already criminal acts based on the victim's membership in some group and the criminal's thoughts.
Assaulting me: 1 year.
Assaulting me because I'm Zoroastrian: 5 years.
Assaulting me by hitting me over the head with a computer: 10 years.
Passing feel-good laws that make a patchwork of justice: priceless!
Since I doubt you actually read the legislation... (Score:5, Insightful)
`(B) if the offender knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death from conduct in violation of subsection (a)(5)(A)(i), a fine under this title or imprisonment for any term of years or for life, or both.'. (my bold)
You may think of 'hacking' as an act in and of itself. This bill deals with various crimes that a 'hacker' might perform, using hacking as a tool or a means.
For additional perspective, refer to these acts mentioned in the bill:
(F) whether the offense involved a computer used by the government in furtherance of national defense, national security, or the administration of justice;
(G) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of significantly interfering with or disrupting a critical infrastructure; and
(H) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of creating a threat to public health or safety, or injury to any person;...
Examples of acts that are contemplated here: disabling a national defense warning system; flooding a city by opening the spillways on a dam; disabling the air traffic control system in a busy metropolitan area.
And for those who will quickly argue that these systems should not be connected to the Internet, note that the bill does not limit these acts of 'hacking' to access from the Internet. Hacking can also include access from inside a company or facility, dialup access to a piece of critical equipment, or even some acts of 'social engineering.'
These are not new criminalizations of innocent acts. They are simply expansions of existing principles to include new technology and means of hurting people and property.
you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a computer.
That's like complaining that you could get LIFE in PRISON for using a screw driver. If you use that screw driver to tighten screws, you're fine. If you stick it in someone's eye and wiggle it around, you may be facing LIFE in PRISON for the MURDER that you committed with your SCREW DRIVER.
Re:Okay, this is pretty much it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Recall that recently, certain charges were dropped against Massoui because a commercial airliner was not specifically mentioned as a 'means of transportation' in the applicable federal law. It's not a waste of ink to spell out the new versions of old crimes that can be committed with new technology.
Slight correction (Score:3, Insightful)
Peace: A situation where there hasn't been any overt terrorist activities, and the government decides it cannot afford to sustain the high-level of alert because of budget deficits and the coming elections.
Re:Context people, context... (Score:1, Insightful)
But we already have laws that cover murder. So enforce it. Why another law? It's just another encroachment. It creates precedent and shows the government wants to control your computer access. Subclassifying crimes by the way/reason they were done is stupid. So what if you kill someone with a baseball bat, a gun, or a computer? It's still murder.
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:2, Insightful)
Alric.
Re:Okay, this is pretty much it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Has hacking ever killed anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe so, but read some of L0pht's papers about the widely insecure remote access to power grids, city works (traffic controls, etc.), and other such things which are probably very hackable and not connected to the internet.
I think the premiss of this law is probably correct. If you commit a robbery and someone gets killed during the commision of that crime the law regarding that crime says you may be held accountable for that death. I don't think this law is much different.
If I hack something like a city's traffic control system and start playing around, only to leave the busiest intersections lights green in both directions, then unbeknownst to me some Soccer mom and her 5 kids get killed by a 18 wheeler driving through said intersection, I'm the one liable for their deaths. The people responsible for maintaining the traffic system may also be liable under either criminal or civil matter for neglegence or something like that, but they can't be held responsible for my actions. Just like, going back to the robbery, if that store owner pulls his gun and shoots and me but hits a customer, I'm still on the hook for the customer's death.
I am not a lawyer, nor a gynocologist, but I play both in my back shed.
Re:Don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
And for quite some time I wondered the same thing a lot of people did on this thread -- why did we need a specific law? Why doesn't current case law apply?
Well, the answer probably is that, in theory, we don't need a law. Current case law does apply. The problem is that too many lawyers push the law to the limits in defense and start weasling around the letter of the law rather than the spirit. How would you like for a legitimate hacker to get off scott free because a lawyer successfully argued that his client didn't attempt to kill an entire town by sabotaging the water control systems, it was the guy who was working there that day and doing his normal job. Irrelevant that the normal control procedures had been subverted.
Silly? Sure. But that's the way the legal system runs at times. This law prevents that kind of crap.
Now, the wiretapping without a warrant is a whole different issue. But people are far too willing to give up their freedom for a false sense of security nowadays. It's very, very sad.
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's an election year, and Joe Congressman needs the law to show the voters he's tough on terrorist hackers.
Read the bill before you post people (Score:3, Insightful)
"(B) if the offender knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death from conduct in violation of subsection (a)(5)(A)(i), a fine under this title or imprisonment for any term of years or for life, or both.'."
This just acknowledges that computers are integral and vital parts of our lifes and can be used in malicious ways just as knifes or guns. Welcome to the global village and the on-line world people.
Re:The Red Scare Part II (Score:5, Insightful)
Security professionals, you know, the guys who catch and provide evidence to prosecute the "malicious" hackers, are themselves hackers (BTW, I _AM_ a security professional - or rather I was before this fucked up bill came about.)
So, who decides who is malicious and who isn't? I know the answer, no need to tell me. The ones who write the flawed security software. The so called "experts in the field". Well, if laws like this continue to take hold, and dumb asses who have no idea what technology is or how to deal with it are left to determine who is a "malicious hacker" and who isn't, then the REAL professionals will dissappear. The only secure systems will be those that belong to the real cyber-criminals, because they will be the only ones who know enough about the systems to secure them.
Those of us who really do care about security will be, and have been, labeled "malicious hackers" by those that write the faulty software we discover. A bill such as this, and others that will probably follow, only server to give the irresponsible corporate buttheads that release such garbage a method to cover their asses when a hole is found. How many people will want to run the risk of testing systems for security now?
Need I mention eavesdropping is AGAINST THE DAMNED LAW no matter what the DoJ and the rest of government may say about it? Anyone ever heard of "due process"? Anyone know what that means? It means they have to go to court, have some evidence against you, by "oth or affermation", and have a judge give them the RIGHT to search ANY of your property or listen to any of your data transfers, no matter what form those transfers are in. But that's OK, because in such a terrifying society as ours, where there's a terrorist on every corner, it's nice to know Big Brother is watching, isn't it?
I've warned people for a LONG time about this sort of crap. I was banned from LKML for such warnings (from which I received many a thank you) and how they could destroy Linux and other free and Open Source software. With the inaction of the populous in general, the fact that most people dont' pay attention, are naive about what's going on and how it will effect them, and the lack of voter participation, is this type of thing any great surprise?
Does anyone really expect a politician to understand the first thing about technology let alone how to deal with it? Does anyone really expect the corporate experts to lead them down the right path, when it's the corporations those experts represent that will lose if government were to take that path?
The ONLY way laws regarding technology will every be made that actually help the industry, and more importantly the general populous, is if those that sit around bitching about it actually put some actions where their mouths are.
Welcome to the United Corporations of America.
(Now what kind of disclaimer do I need to place here to keep some rotten corporate gorilla from trying to sue me for voicing my opinion in a supposedly FREE country? Whatever it is, consider it posted right damn here!)
I suppose "hackers" will get tossed in the brig without an attorney too? Does anyone aside from the true hackers out there _REALLY_ know WTF a hacker is? It certainly isn't what you hear about in political circles and on the damn news.
Paul G. "I don't do Windows" Allen
(and if you doubt that I am, I'll prove it!)
What does this mean for someone like E. Mason? (Score:2, Insightful)
I am sure that many of you read about the Honeypot that was hacked into last week and eventually the hacker himself was located.
Does this mean that teenage "hackers" (Very loosely used) will now be tried as adults and put in prison for life?
Many of those people barely know what they are doing, as was shown with the hack attempt on that OpenBSD honeypot.
What I really want to know, is why the heck can a mouse be as dangerous as a bomb? Don't people back up data? That is a terrible generalization. There shouldn't be any reason for a mouse to be as dangerous as a bomb. The systems that could allow such damage to occur should NEVER be accessible by unauthorized individuals. They should be on their own hardened network, seperate from the rest of the net.
Sure, it can be helpful to have an application that connects to the nuclear reactor's control and monitoring station so that a director can view and alter the flow of nuclear material from his internet connected desk computer. Why the heck take the chance that some SOB angry 15 year old or terrorist would be able to access that system?
Personally, I think that this threat is being blown WAY out of proportion and is really designed to protect corporate networks that aren't locked down enough. I say to bad. If they want to have internet connected desktops across their enterprise, then they better be ready for the assault that WILL happen. If they don't like that idea, then they should cut themselves off of the internet, only allowing E-mail to come and go from their network. Sure, a few workstations would need net access, but not EVERY single workstation in the company.
Re:Since I doubt you actually read the legislation (Score:3, Insightful)
(G) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of significantly interfering with or disrupting a critical infrastructure; and
(H) whether the violation was intended to or had the effect of creating a threat to public health or safety, or injury to any person;...
So if Joe sends an email to Jane and for some reason that email trigger some weird bugs that somehow cause some shitty system to go down and that system going down cause G or H then you can get life imprisonment for sending an email?
Ok that exemple is a bit extreme, but still, given how everthing is/can be interconnected through computers who knows how much unintended effects can result from some interraction with buggy software.
but how's that different... (Score:2, Insightful)
It simply boggles the mind how these fucktards running our country can make a law for every single thing in existence in the world, covering the same crime by 50 or 60 different laws...
Grrr... obviously they don't have anything better to do than waste our tax dollars and pork interns(not just Billy boy, mind you, the whole lot of our public servants mostly), or possibly kill them. It is becoming excruciatingly painfully obvious that our public officials are not like the average American, they are much, much greedier and of much lower character.
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is a life sentence for computer hacking why isn't there one for mallicious cooking of the books?
(answer: The politicians would be so vulnerable that they couldn't pass it)
Enron and WorldCom (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Has hacking ever killed anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
US citizens get what they deserve (Score:0, Insightful)
Any of you guys who voted for Bush have no right to complain now but if you don't like it you can always reconsider at the next election.
It will be nice when nerds learn to read... (Score:3, Insightful)
they arent talking about a DoS attack & they arent talking about defacing someones website. they are talking about air traffic contol systems, stoplight controls on busy intersections, railway switching programs, nuclear powerplant software and other things that have the potential to cause graet harm...
they may have been watching to many movies, but I see where they are coming from....
Redundant and Unconstitutional (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, the rest of the law is redundant and unnecessary. Crimes committed via the internet should receive the same punishment as those in the real-world, where the situation is analagous. For example, breaking and entering can be treated the same. Simply hacking into a persons computer is breaking and entering, even if it causes no damage; similarly, breaking/entering into a person's home, even if you do no damage or steal nothing (and don't damage the locks), is a crime.
When a hacker purposefully hacks into, say the USAF HQ, and steals top-secret documents on airplane design, then divulges them to China that's a crime just as it is in real life (treason). Similarly, it should be punishable just as it is in real life (by life in prison or death).
Another example, if a mob boss orders an underling to kill someone via an on-line e-mail, that's murder and conspiracy to commit murder. It should be punished just as it is in real life: by life in prison or death.
The fact that a crime took place over the media of the internet does not greaten or lessen its severity or lack-thereof. It simply creates a jurisdictional issue. The issue can be solved like such: if a crime is committed on the internet and its affect occurs in that state, then its the state's jurisdiction; if it occurs in one state and affects another (i.e., the mob boss in NY orders his hitman to kill someone in CA), then it should be under federal jurisdiction.
Re:Has hacking ever killed anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Since I doubt you actually read the legislation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Typical (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:but how's that different... (Score:2, Insightful)
"ooh, i can do anything and basically get protected because i am in the House? Come over here and sit on my lap then, intern!"
people just abuse power, it's a fact of life
Re:Except (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone say 1984? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Okay, this is pretty much it. (Score:1, Insightful)
In the face of a terrorist threat, some people feel lisenced to do whatever possible to avert that threat, right down to committing what, if turned around, would also be seen as a terrorist attack.
I wouldn't be too quick to exonerate the US government for their actions.
Is this the wrong way round ? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is lax security that is the real crime...
Most of this anti-cracker hype is just stupid. 99% of cracks are just grafitti, no worse than paint on the wall. It is hyped up as something serious but I have only heard of a few cases where it is anything more than that.
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:3, Insightful)
X-10 (Score:2, Insightful)
Does this mean those damn X-10 camera ads (which everyone knows people only buy stick in the girls locker room - surrpetitious surveilance.
The Hacker Manifesto (Score:5, Insightful)
The Conscience of a Hacker
by Mentor
Written on January 8, 1986
Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...
Damn kids. They're all alike.
But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him,what may have molded him?
I am a hacker, enter my world...
Mine is a world that begins with school. I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...
Damn underachiever. They're all alike.
I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head."
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.
I made a discovery today. I found a computer.
Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up.
Not because it doesn't like me...
Or feels threatened by me...
Or thinks I'm a smart ass...
Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.
And then it happened. A door opened to a world rushing through my phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found.
"This is it... this is where I belong." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all.
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike.
You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.
This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals.
We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.
I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all...
After all, we're all alike.
Copyright 1986 by Loyd Blankenship (mentor@blankenship.com). All rights reserved.
Re:Except (Score:3, Insightful)
life sentences for lesser crimes already exist (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Its not as harsh as it sounds. (Score:2, Insightful)
True. No argument there.
But differentiating between first degree murder and a lesser homicide charges is -- pun intended -- a horse of an entirely different color than differentiating between a "hate crime" and non-"hate crime".
We punish homicide if you planned to do it ("first degree"), if you didn't plan to do it ("second degree") and even if you failed to adequately plan your actions to prevent it ("negligent homicide"). But please note that this is all about planning your actions.
The Anglo-American political tradition, especially as codified in the U.S. Constitution, strives to protect individual freedom of belief. This tradition, one might say, strives to officially ignore what one believes, and to pay attention to one's actions only.
This is not merely a high-minded libertarianism of spirit; it's also a quite pragmatic formula first worked out in Europe after years suffering the disastrous consequences of attempting to enforce individual moral belief. With the rise of Protestantism, Europe was convulsed by decades of warfare putatively over and greatly fueled by sectarian difference. The wars ended with millions dead -- and with treaties guaranteeing freedom of religion. The State agreed, more (Holland) or less (English "test" laws), not to examine individuals' beliefs lest it lead once again to civil war.
The situation was as precarious, or more, in the nascent United States: while the northern British American colonies had been settled by persecuted religious minorities (Massachusetts Bay by Puritans, Pennsylvania (led) by Quakers and later joined by a whole host of Protestant splinter sects, Maryland by Catholics), these minorities held radically different religious views and some were more than willing to become persecutors themselves (thus the founding of Rhode Island, for example). To create a common civil union - the United States -- in North America required freedom of conscience, again not merely because it is right but also because nothing else would work in that pluralistic amalgamation of colonies and sects.
What has this to do with laws against hate crimes? Our legal tradition, learned with hard experience, is to punish injurious actions but not to police or punish belief. Hate crime laws deviate from this legal tradition by more forcibly punishing actions that are accompanied by beliefs or ideologies.
While racial bigotry has become perhaps the most ill-regarded civil sin in the United States, I don't think any mainstream legal theorist has or would explicitly propose outlawing bigoted beliefs unaccompanied by actions.
Except -- what, then, does the "hate crime" law punish? The action? No, that's already illegal.
Is it punishing the action, when performed by a bigot? But isn't that just saying that we have different laws for different classes of people: one law for "right-thinking" people and another for "bigots"? And since the difference between a bigot and a non-bigot is just that one does, and the other does not, hold some bigoted belief, isn't that tantamount to punishing the bigot -- (or to be entirely technical, punishing the bigot more when we're otherwise punishing him for some action) - for having that belief?
Then if the "hate crime" law isn't punishing the action, and it isn't punishing the action when performed by a bigot, then it must be punishing - yes - the holding of the bigoted belief. And if we're punishing the holding of a belief, that's entirely distinct from any action. The action triggers the punishment, yes, but what's punished is not the action, but the "incorrect" believing. That's not really any different from outlawing the belief, and that's just saying that we punish "thought crime".
Outlawing belief or ideologies didn't work very well in 17th century Europe, it wouldn't have worked at the founding of the United States, and it hasn't much chance of working well now. Let's leave every man the freedom of his conscience, and punish his actions without trying to read or regulate his mind.
Re:Redundant and Unconstitutional (Score:3, Insightful)
To determine how I know these are obviously not breaking and entering, you have to go back to what makes breaking an entering wrong: because it violates a person's right to propertty and privacy.
In the case of deleting the last part of a url, that's not breaking/entering, because in offering a website to the public w/o access restrictions, its like having a garage sale. You can't have a garage sale and then sue someone for tresspassing when they come to inquire whats for sale. In other words, simply putting a site on the net without any restrictions implies that you want people to view it.
computers don't kill ppl, ppl do (Score:2, Insightful)
Law of Unintended Consequences (Score:1, Insightful)
Never mind the fact that we already have laws covering theft, murder, hacking, etc... As laws against cracking, and even hacking, get more and more draconian, what will be the eventual effect?
I think that a probable result is fewer and fewer hackers in the US. Which means, over time, less and less US expertise in safe systems, and relatively more foriegn expertise in cracking systems. Combine this with the various M$ attempts to make their insecure products mandatory, and their attempts to outlaw the release of information on their bugs, and what do you have?
Anti-cracking laws are fine, with reasonable penalties; unreasonable penalties will result in a huge loss of security for the USA in the long run. Only the bad guys will have the skills, and the really bad ones want to cause damage, not just get some props by embarassing corporations into fixing their security holes.
Well, the general idea is, if you make an example of a few hackers and script kiddies by putting them away for a long time, the long term effect will probably be the unintended consequence of much higher susceptability of the USA digital infrastructure to attack by the "Really Bad Guys".
What happened to community service? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is interesting that Congress has approved a penalty usually reserved for murder for a crime that essentially amounts to expensive vandalism. If you deface a wall, you get a few hours of community service. If you deface a website, you get life. I would say that it is difficult to consider a society that can put people in prison for life for a crime that is more or less a misdemeanor a free society.
What about those Enron and Worldcom executives? When do they get life in prison or an even stiffer sentence? The crime they committed was premeditated stealing. That at least would be considered a felony in most cultures.
Moral:
If you are greedy and like to steal, Uncle Sam wants you to run a major corporation and write a book. If you are a teenager and have nothing better to do than deface a little property, better do it with spray paint, because if you use your computer, you can grow old in prison.
Nice message we are sending to young people these days. I suppose Gecko was right: "Greed... is good!"