Ask Mike Godwin About Internet Law 357
Mike Godwin is probably best known to Slashdot readers for Godwin's Law, but that's one of the most minor reasons you should know him. In this blurb for his book, CYBER RIGHTS, he's (correctly) described as "one of the first lawyers to 'live and work in cyberspace.'" Naturally, Mike can't give specific legal advice, but he's certainly about as expert as they come about the development of law and legal hassles surrounding the Internet. We'll send him 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and publish his answers as soon as we get them back.
questions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:questions... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Other work (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Other work (Score:3, Funny)
And how many 'o's are there in Goodwin ?
Can't anyone count past 1 ?
Another GOdwin.
Intellectual Property... (Score:2, Interesting)
Is there any written law that backs it up, or is it just baseless threats?
Re:Intellectual Property... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Intellectual Property... (Score:3, Informative)
This idea is a hold-over from rules before countries (including the US) brought copyright laws into line with the Berne convention.
Re:Intellectual Property... (Score:3, Interesting)
Gotta ask (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gotta ask (Score:5, Insightful)
You're connecting "piracy", something inherantly illegal by definition, with peer-to-peer. p2p is a technology that can be used for so many different things, that lumping them together is naive.
so many geeks want what to be legal? piracy? sharing mp3's? p2p? they are 3 separate things, only one of which I care about, as a geek, and that is p2p. Which I don't even use. Once i tried bit torrent to d/l slackware, but it didn't work.
please, for the sake of reality, don't lump 3 vastly different things into one thing that the general public sees as illegal. p2p != sharing mp3s. p2p != piracy. sharing mp3's is not always even equal to piracy.
generalizations are like premature optimizations... the root of all evil.
Re:Gotta ask (Score:4, Insightful)
which doesn't mean it won't be in the near future. if you want to regulate or in some way crack down on the software implementations of p2p that are used for violating copyrights, that is fine as long as it is done in a respnosible manner. But if you want to make it illegal for me to write a p2p software system that is not in any way related to unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials, then that is absolutely wrong.
No, this statement is naive.
explain why, i'm listening...
Re:Gotta ask (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gotta ask (Score:4, Funny)
IP lawsuit frenzy. (Score:4, Interesting)
No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997 (Score:5, Interesting)
My question (Score:5, Funny)
This is scary... (Score:3, Insightful)
We live in scary times,
myke
No , we don't (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this is Freakin' slashdot. Aren't we supposed to be somewhat intelligent? Basically all of the arguments can be boiled down to the following exagerations. They are obviously exagerations, but they expose the logicall falla
Definitions. (Score:3, Funny)
1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2. A mischievous trick; a prank.
3. Your penis.
Dude! (Score:3, Funny)
IP laws in the internet age (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: and prevent copying so easily (Score:3, Interesting)
what are you talking about? give me at least one example on how you would make it impossible for me to copy something.
everything can be ripped (eg. with dd command) everything can be put on the web for others to download.
better you would ask how the law should look like, when everyhitng is possible to copy.
Re:IP laws in the internet age (Score:5, Interesting)
Fair Use (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fair Use (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you think needs to be done to ensure that our rights of Fair Use are preserved in this digital age?
Re:Fair Use (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you think needs to be done to ensure that the rights of creators and artists are preserved in the digital age?
Suppose it is determined that a solution that both protects the producer's copyrights and the consumer's fair-use rights is not possible. Which side's rights deserve more protection?
Sedition and Internet free speach (Score:4, Interesting)
My question is, would an internet website fall into that catigory, as it does not have the same force as say, Hitler in the Haufbrauhause with like, 2,000 SA going to storm the Bavarian capital building. It does have a wider audience, but due to the decentralized nature I doubt that a website can provide a clear and present danger or immediate action at all. Am I wrong? Does the PATRIOT Act redefine it in such a way as to make it "terrorism?"
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Personal Usage (Score:5, Interesting)
Should BioWare/Atari pay for the new CD Rom I had to buy after upgrading Neverwinter Nights to v1.31, and subsequently making it impossible for my old CD Rom to read the disc because of advanced "SafeDisc"?
*corollary*
I own Neverwinter Nights, all 5 glorious discs of it. If, for some reason, my old and/or busted CD Rom refuses to give the executable what it wants because of SafeDisc, is it legal to bypass the "Do you have a legit disc" check? Is it legal to download a crack that does this for you because I can't speak hex?
(On the Neverwinter Nights message boards, Atari says "no", BioWare says "We can't condone that action, but we're happy you purchased the disc (hint), but you can't link to cracks sites here")
~Will
Re: what, exactly, is being licensed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Questions about content (Score:4, Interesting)
What about mirroring? Does the answer change if the site would require you to register before accessing it? Does the answer change if no copyright notice is placed on the page?
Re:Questions about content (Score:5, Interesting)
Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:3, Insightful)
1. No lawyer is going to want to touch it, because you are a private citizen who is presumably not ridiculously wealthy, so there really is very little chance of the lawyer's cut being worth the time. If you are very obviously somehow in t
Re:Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:4, Informative)
It's possible to argue that connecting to the internet with an outdated and buggy OS could be negligence... what if that buggy computer is used to break into a hospital where the perpetrator changes something that results in a death? It's a good question, but not a cut & dry as "you didn't pull the trigger, therefore you are not guilty."
Re:Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Individuals vs. Major ISPs (Score:3, Interesting)
One other note of relevance: Having an open, unencrypted WiFi network means i
Interoperability (Score:5, Interesting)
The DMCA contains an obscure clause about interoperability, what does this mean? That is could I break encryption to allow DVD player to work, so long as I maintained the spirit of the encryption (not allowing copies)? Can I break the encryption on various games to allow them to run under Wine?
Re:Interoperability (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there any hope? (Score:5, Interesting)
Lesser-known cases that have a big impact on law. (Score:5, Interesting)
Internet "Piracy" (Score:5, Interesting)
Skimming the web for some history on this, it seems that the idea of the laws against piracy arose slowly to deal with the problem of crimes committed outside of any national jurisdiction. I was wondering if Mike has any thoughts on this parallel, and what it may imply about how cyberlaw may evolve.
Re:Internet "Piracy" (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright Bullying... (Score:4, Interesting)
A print example is an author's refusal to allow translation of a book to a given language.
A more digital example is Lucas' refusal to release the original Star Wars movies on DVD.
It seems to me that the copyright system is designed to allow the copyright holder to receive compensation for his art, but that this system is being abused by not allowing publication in a given format.
This has obvious implications, also, in the world of digital music.
Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
Same Question.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same Question.... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easy to be against something, it's a lot harder to come up with something you're for, and I felt I had to do that before I could feel good about opining on this topic.
Summary version: It can't be summarized well, because you pretty much have to toss out copyright as you know it and start from nearly scratch. Even thin [jerf.org]
Internet law, International law? 3 for one... (Score:5, Interesting)
ISPs vs. FBI (Score:5, Interesting)
Berne Convention and copyright lengths online (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the best general rule for dealing with 'odd' copyright lengths such as Crown copyright, 50 years from date of publication in general, in countries like the US which have not adopted the Berne Convention rule of shorter term?
Internet Pollution (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it possible that this view can be used in any legal way to go after Internet polluters?
Legality of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Judicial systems and web-based hoo-ha? (Score:3, Interesting)
We all know it's possible, but I'm curious to know if anyone is doing it effectively and if there are judges who have a comfort level that allows them to accept a move from paper-based notification.
What we say in Cyberspace (Score:5, Interesting)
On the contary, if a site passes itself as an "eNewspaper" site, an eMag or whatever, and it publishes mistruths, then I would expect it to be sued as any pulp publication would be.
Are there any legal precedents or specific laws on this?
Whose laws govern the Internet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Different countries/governments/political systems have different laws concerning freedom of expression, privacy, property rights, etc.
How can it be possible to create one set of rules that can apply to all nations with regards to Internet access?
Network Searching Programs (Score:5, Interesting)
what is the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
Question which everyone here concerns about (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially to open-source developers?
Battle of the giants (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, what's your take on the SCO brouhaha?
Future Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
As a computer science student graduating college and hoping to head to law school, I wonder if you have any particular advice about wha training, if any, will help to prepare me for "cyber-law". Many schools seem to have programs focusing on this aspect of the law, but I've often thought that the generalist approach to a field yielded better results.
Are there any experiences you'd advise a young prospective attorney interested in this field to seek out?
Spyware and its legal status (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it illegal for ISPs to scan mail for virii? (Score:3, Interesting)
Making DVD Copies (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it legal to make and edit copies of commercial DVDs for personal use? What about loaning out the edited copies to friends?
Why do we need copyright protection? (Score:4, Interesting)
It used to be hard to make intellectual property that was compelling enough to justify the enormous cost of distribution. Since the distribution costs and production costs forced each other up, there was a lot of sunk-cost to deal with before any customers even had the option of paying for the product. Now, distribution costs are so low that you can do as little or as much production as you want, and you can distribute it nearly for free if you use peer-to-peer distribution networks. Software like Apple's iLife suite lowers the ante on production costs to within reach of nearly any high school or college student, let alone professionals moonlighting as film or recording artists.
Maybe most of the product will not be that good, but there is still no reason to involve the massive and massive expense of a full-blown 1980s style music or film production. For example, people routinely pay for concert tickets (guaranteed delivery) of a performance--sight unseen. If too few tickets are sold, the show is cancelled, and the ticket holders are refunded. Why not sell download tickets for yet unfinished films and albums? Then the fan base can directly fund proven popular artists' productions.
I recognise that some artists and a lot of middlemen enjoy lots of residual income from past production work. Why is it so hard to recognise that this is not the only way to pay artists for their work, and there may be better ways if we think about it? The way I see it, copyrights only protect residual income, which pays artists and middlemen to NOT produce new material. Why do people think this is good?
what make's the net so special? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much for the senator? (Score:3, Funny)
sharing your book (Score:4, Interesting)
Privacy and domain names (Score:5, Interesting)
For that matter, what are the legal barriers against having a single "recipient number" for all types of communication so that one can move and still keep the same number? Email, phone, paper mail, etc. can then be redirected to such a number, and internal lookup tables would supply physical locations or addresses for final delivery. But to senders or callers, it is just one stable number.
Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think that the widespread use of the Internet and practical anonymity will force copyright back into its original, more reasonable form of limited restrictions on copying as business models adapt to the unenforcability of existing law? Or do you think it will force law the other way, to ever-more draconian measures that can't be enforced effectively without making examples of people?
Do you think a new form of Intellectual Property will arise that is based around creators' rights to control their work that goes beyond mere copying and into the realm of restrictions on use? Or have we already gotten to that point?
Are EULAs legal? If they aren't now, will they ever be?
What would you suggest people in countries do to avoid capitulating to the USA and adopting its twisted notion of copyright? It's not always practical to "just say no" to the USA.
GNU General Public Licence (Score:5, Interesting)
I have written some software and have decided to distribute it under the GNU General Public License. I then find out some established/incorporated company has modified the software without redistributing their modified version freely, that they are making a profit out of the modified undistributed version, or that they are redistributing the software without pointing out that what they are giving is not the original version of the software. What exactly are my rights? Is it worth taking the company to court, or is this too risky? To come to the point, is the GPL actually a licence which has some value in the courts of justice?
Re:GNU General Public Licence (Score:3, Informative)
1) Contact a lawyer. Have him/her write a Cease and Desist order to $company. Contemplate further legal action against $company for copyright violation. You may also be able to hit them with something akin to "profitting from stolen goods". IANAL.
2) Contact the FSF. They've dealt with these matters before. Bradley Kuhn and Eben Moglen will talk to you over email, phone, and in person. There are good gu
What legislators know to be the internet. (Score:3, Interesting)
What do you think is the best means to educate legislators and their advisors on how the internet actually works?
Eibhear
Groklaw (Score:5, Interesting)
Global Question (Score:5, Interesting)
If the Internet started with the U.S and expanded to some parts of Antarctica. U.S. rules are probably useless once it gets to the new continent.
Vice versa if someone in Antarctica created a P2P application and it became extremely popular in the U.S. U.S lawyers probably can never get a grip on it.
Isn't geography the greatest challenge out there for any lawyers. In fact it's so difficult to deal with it's rendering the law useless.
Corporate cave-ins (Score:5, Interesting)
That police officer has repeatedly attempted to contact me (as a rule, I never volunteer any information to law enforcement), and has gone so far as to obtain some personal information about me. Turns-out that the ISP caved-in to his demands and provided some information about me, in clear violation of legal procedure and current privacy laws.
This is no different from a cracker obtaining passwords/access through social engineering.
Furthermore, the officer has repeatedly attempted to have me contact him tough threatening e-mail messages.
My question is: should there be stiff penalties towards law-enforcement officers who manage to illegally and without due process of law get information about ISP subscribers, especially if they are well outside their police department jurisdiction?
Parody sites (Score:3, Interesting)
My article [adzoox.com]
MythTV and copyrighted listings data (Score:4, Interesting)
My question is: Would it be legal to screen-scrape and use this copyrighted information for personal use if there were "terms of service" documents on the website that explicitly forbid this behaviour?
Free Tommy Chong (Score:3, Interesting)
Before his arrest, I would have just ASSUMED selling bongs over the Internet was legal. What is the best way for an entrepreneur ( like an individual selling something on eBay ) to avoid tripping over any stupid and obscure laws?
Debating Skills (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this a reasonable assertion? Has this been the case when new technology has appeared in the past?
If so, then most importantly: in your opinion, is this a "Good Thing"?Thanks, Rick.C
Internet Law Jurisdiction (Score:3, Interesting)
Godwin's Law for the 21st Century? (Score:3, Interesting)
downloading vs. uploading (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you?
Clicking a link may cause someone's webserver to produce a copy of a copyrighted work and distribute it to me, I agree, but have -I- just violated copyright law?
Reverse engineering doomed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think that Compaq would have been able to do what they did with the PC clone in todays environment? What does that say about the future of research and development?
Domain name question... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm interested in a domain name, but it seems to be in legal limbo and I'd be interested in understanding the principles involved.
Backround:
The company that holds the domain name filed for bankruptcy about 2 months after domain name was first requested. This was back in 1998. There is no evidence that the company ever used the domain name (e.g. internet archive, trademark registration, etc). The company was trying to restructure and then filed to liquidate back in 2000.
I looked up the court docket for the bankruptcy case but it looks like there have been no judicial or trustee actions for ~3 years.
However, the domain name, which appears to be in some sort of Registrar Lock and also a Legal Lock at Network Solutions, appears to be renewing at 1-year intervals somehow.
There are two other sub-questions that this scenario raises that I presume you don't have time to answer but I'll mention them in case someone else knows:
1) Does a bankruptcy trustee typically have the ability to renew contracts such as that for a domain name?
2) What sort of court papers would signal to a registrar that the entity registering the name has been bankrupt and the name should be removed from whatever legal lock and auto-renewal process is in place? (We've tried faxing stuff to their legal department but it seems to go into a black hole and we don't really know what should be sent.)
--LP
Defending free software from patent lawsuits (Score:3, Interesting)
So we've all read the interview (or, more likely, the headline describing the interview) on groklaw with Mike Anderer, the SCO insider and then consultant, who said that over the next 10 years, Microsoft and possibly other enemies of open source software are going to attempt to shut down open source software. Since they don't have valid trade secret or copyright claims, software patents are going to be the weapon of choice, and we also all know about the very low quality of software patents in general, due to overworked patent examiners, poor-quality patent submissions that are intentionally ignorant of prior art in the area, and perhaps an unfamiliarity with the history of software on the part of the examiners.
Taken together, this sounds pretty bad for the open source community. The targets of such lawsuits will be the companies using Linux who have the deepest pockets, and if it seems likely there will be 25 legal attacks a year, the obvious business choice to minimize risk is to forget about GNU/Linux, and go with Windows. Alternatively, the developers themselves (and distributors) might be sued, and presumably they would fold immediately due to the lack of an ample supply of patent lawyers willing to work pro bono.
Do you see this as a strong risk to the open source movement, and what can we do about it?
WarDriving and Wireless networks. (Score:5, Interesting)
All 3 networks had no encryption in place and no passwords were cracked to access any of the data.
How many, and which laws, have I broken?
Graphics and copyrights (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several cases that say that recognizable images (Spiderman, Anime, etc) are all NOT okay to use - but there are also some cases that say that depending on the size and the usage, it may be okay.
So, what is your opinion (not legal advice) about what would and would not be legal in terms of Avatars on forums, and also for graphics in general on the net.
Professions in Logic (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer professionals had to deal with trying to figure out reliable ways to deal with similar problems even when it wasn't in their power to change things. The waterfall development models of the sixites, and the trial-and-error bumbling of the hobbyists have developed some workable procedures (extreme programming, pragmatic programming, etc) that have made the computer world accessible and observable to all who want to participate.
I don't see the legal community even wanting to pursue such ideas. A senator introducing a bill into congress can offer all sorts of flowery comments to his "legal code", but it's the code that matters and affects people once codified into law. So much irrelevant crap gets worked into law each year on the state and federal level by being hidden in other work, it's depressing. When a court writes a verdict to set a legal precedent, all hell seems to break loose. It's like you have been told that the memory management routines in the standard C library are deprecated and you're left wondering whether that impacts your string library.
I know that English stinks as a language for expressing logic, but why can't lawyers depend on something English-like such as Lisp, Scheme, Prolog, or a special legal dialect that could be reduced to clear answers and effects. Lawmakers and judges could continue to write English comments with flowery and awe-inspiring prose, but their code would be clear what the result of this change would be. Imagine the Supreme Court running their rulings through regression tests before they are released so that they can fully understand the impact the changes will have. The results may still be ground-breaking but at least such tests would ensure that there are no unexpected results and loopholes created by a sloppy ruling.
Of course, this is an absurd idea. But it's even more absurd that the governed allow politicians, lawyers, and judges to play so fast and loose with the rules that govern their own lives. Is it a matter of power having corrupted those in charge? The legal community has all sorts of institutions to preserve their power ("passing the bar", etc).
Is it just that only recently have the techniques and ability to deal with such a huge system become available? I could be wrong, but wasn't it Blaise Pascal who dreamed of a time when courts could be run with the logic of algebra? Today we machines that can hold the volumous data from the legal world. Our understanding of logic and (more importantly) the consequences of making exceptions are much better understood. Artificial Intelligence tools do exactly this sort of logical "if this then this" sort of reasoning that humans are so bad at doing when we really don't want to come to the logical conclusion.
These days, the debate over gay marriage for example gives me the willies with overzealous lawmakers spreading diatribes about their legal changes to the definition of marriage. Of course CNN would never carry the actual patches, but if I could go to a website and see for myself different positions. Group A was arguing to simply remove definition of husband and wife as male and female. Group B was coding a subclass of marriage called gay_union. And Group C was making changes to define marriage as a couple capable of producing offspring. Regression tests may tell us more about their intents than their 30 second commercial spots. Group B's gay_union subclass might not hold up as constitutionally valid as marriage and would be subject to court challenge. Group C's fertility requirement might keep certain old or infertile heterosexual couples from getting married. While Group A's dropping the gender definition might make for some funny changes to a 1913 New York subway law th
Why is it that normal law is not being used? (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, if i buy a hammer i can use it to break windows or heads or babies backbones (humour noir), nevertheless it is not illegal to own, buy, invent, sell or use a hammer in any legal way.
Why is it that in the internet it has been so hard to grasp for lawyers, judges and (worst of the cesspool) lawmakers that software gadgets need not be different at all from hardware gadgets.
Compare hammer to a portscanner or an active hacking tool (an exploit)
I mean, just to finish the argument. People in the US can buy an m16 over the counter at wallmart for christ sakes....and lawmakers want to make a different set of law for cyberspace (DMCA for example)?
Why? Why is the current state of afairs not inconstitutional by US law?
'Free'est nation? (Score:5, Interesting)
i.e., Where do you feel the rights and freedoms of individuals are best protected and/or recognized in law?
i.e.2., Is the USA still the "land of the free", or should that title be bestowed upon Canada, the EU, or foo?
Activism sans Whack Job Factor? (Score:5, Interesting)
As privacy advocates, what can we do to impress the importance of privacy without coming off as tinfoil-hatted whack jobs?
An example was a presentation I prepared for co-workers a while back regarding grocery store "loyalty" cards. In it, even after detailing the California case of a store that in a slip and fall case in their store, tried to introduce the customer's purchases, tracked via a card, saying he may have been drunk at the time because of frequent alcohol purchases. Afterwards, I was hit with several questions about being paranoid. I used the standard "this is why we have envelopes and blinds instead of postcards and open windows" argument, and while most seemed to understand, some were obviously unimpressed. What can we do to convince people of the need for privacy without being over the top?
Why does the US have software patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1981, computer programs were nonstatutory subject matter for patents. The US Supreme Court reiterated this in Diamond v. Dieher, but clarified that when you use software somewhere in a process, "the process as a whole does not thereby become unpatentable subject matter."
Today, with no change of law, we see software patents all over the place? What happened? I don't think it can just be re-wording of patents to make them sound like part of a system. The Diehr opinion had a whole section (IV) for the express purpose of heading such things off. "To hold otherwise would allow a competent draftsman to evade the recognized limitations on the type of subject matter eligible for patent protection."
So where did all these software patents come from?
SPAM Law (Score:4, Interesting)
Before the flame, let me acknowledge the opportunity to target legitimate business by sending spam on behalf of a company without their knowledge to put the business in legal peril.
Don't go after the dealer, go after the supplier.
P2P networks obfuscating sources... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Each peer reserves some space on their HDD
2) The peer has no knowledge or control of the contents, which are all encrypted.
3) It's impossible (for the legal question) to
a) Determine who inserted information into the network
b) Determine who requested information from the network
c) Determine who provided information on the network
The only reasonable thing you can prove, is that one peer was the last proxy - it routed the information to you. It does not know the contents, and it only did so on your node's request.
Do you think such a network, should it grow popular, would be outlawed? And if so, how?
Kjella
Is it time for some very basic legislation (Score:3, Interesting)
Some examples:
I install a program that claims to do 'X', but it actually does 'X' and or 'Y'.
I chose to remove a program from my system, yet parts of it remain.
Installation of one program depends on or triggers the installation of another one. The terms and conditions for the secondary, but required, software are not acceptable though the terms and conditions on the primary software are. Should I be able to return the package to its point of origin even though it has been opened?
In case the above is not really clear, my real question lies here:
When the Founders put America together they had some reasonable expectations as to how a free, fair and open society should run. Given this expectation, they were able to provide a framework to guide and foster development that benefit everyone. (This is a little out of balance today, but overall the idea is sound.)
Fast forward to today. Most people have reasonable expectations as to how their software should work for them, but are growing increasingly frustrated with increasingly aggressive software being produced and sold without a solid framework to maintain order.
If you take digital devices out of the discussion, for a moment, our current balance of law and freedom mostly works. People have the means to understand what they can and cannot do. There are reasonable protections for those that need them as well.
Instead of hashing out every issue in the courts, where the general public will end up at a clear disadvantage, shouldn't we be working hard to define and frame core issues and build from there?
I'm thinking of a cyber citizens bill of rights, where the right expectations can be set. Given those expectations, wouldn't our existing body of law largely handle most of the issues at hand today?
( Wishing to slow the great cyber land-grab long enough to see just what we really are losing.)
Re:lawmakers break into computer (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a difference between trespassing a "wide open" system which you aren't supposed to be in, and "cracking" ones way into a secured system which you aren't supposd to be in?