According to an article on NewsFactor.com.
Due to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, lawmakers are starting to group both hackers and spammers as terrorists, and punishing them accordingly. Since the terrorism crackdown from 9/11, penalties for terrorism, and in this case hacking and spamming, could result to life in prison. There are groups out there contesting this, but evidently the general public is doing nothing to oppose this.
I don't understand what the government is so worried about. Hackers and Spammers especially are definately troublesome groups, but what do they really do? Spammers send out millions (if not billions) of unsolicited emails every day. This means that most everyone (even those with good spam protection) has to delete a couple emails every day. This is an inconvenience, but really not worth life imprisonment. And Hackers, what a broad term... Lets say that they are talking about it in the general sense of the word (since they weren't much more specific). Hackers, even the malicious ones, contribute to society on a certain level. Think of the non-security related technology that might have been created as a direct or indirect result of hacking. (technically, isn't all software created by *hackers*?...) And since I presume that a majority of the malicious hackers are unsuccessful (unable to gain entry, or vital information), we would be imposing this harsh penalty on people who never succeed at breaking the law...
Anyways, I think its all a load of crap. Pretty soon anyone who does a ping, port scan, or sends an email to the wrong address will be locked up as a terrorist. I hope everyone enjoys reading this blog, while I wait for them to lock me up...
Posted by kposey at July 31, 2003 11:14 AM | TrackBack