] On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Dave Sill wrote:
]
] > jasons@... wrote:
] >
] > >... We need a way to help the legal system show leniency when people
] > >were dumb versus being intentionally malicious.
] >
] > That's [why] we have judges and juries. Theoretically. In reality, as
] > we all know, the system doesn't always work the way it was supposed to
] > work.

Tom Phoenix wrote:
] But it's hard to explain technical issues (by definition), and it's
] especially difficult to explain them to legislators, prosecutors, judges,
] and juries. To these folks, there's no difference between what a cracker
] does and what Brian West did (or what Randal did, or Dmitry Sklyarov, or
] you, or me).

I agree with most of this thread. But I don't think this is just
a problem of people not understanding technical issues. I'd like
to go back to what Jason was saying.

I think an important part of this jigsaw is "intentionally malicious".
This is an issue which is not technical in nature, and its something
that the legal system has been looking at for hundreds of years - its
nothing new, except apparently in computer crime laws. In my neck of
the woods, I believe the legal system calls it "criminal intent", YMMV.

If you try to get legislators, prosecutors, judges, and juries to
understand detailed technical issues, 90% of the time their eyes will
glaze over and you will get nowhere. But the legal system already
understands phrases like "intentionally malicious", so getting
legislators to focus more on intent (eg: requiring clear mal-intent
for computer crime offenses) seems a realistic goal.

__________________________________________________________________________
David Keegel <djk@...> URL: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/djk/
Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management