(I'm not a lawyer.)

] Sysadmins do things every day that, if their employer decides at a later
] time any one of which was "unauthorized," subject them to misdemeanor and
] even felony jeopardy. That is one of the touchstones of an
] unconstitutionally vague law - that it is easily susceptible of ex post
] facto application.

Let me quote a bit from 164.377 Computer crime.
``
(4) Any person who knowingly and without authorization uses, accesses
or attempts to access any computer, computer system, computer network, or
any computer software, program, documentation or data contained in such
computer, computer system or computer network, commits computer crime.
''

Could you use this wording to run a legal argument that a person didn't
*know* that they were without authorization? If the statue could be
interpreted that way, it would only apply to people who knew at the
time that they were doing something unauthorized.

In that case, if you could show that you didn't realise at the time
that the act was "without authorization" (because you had implicit
authorization, or the computer allowed you to do it, or maybe it
seemed like a reasonable thing and no one told you not to), then
you could argue that you weren't knowingly without authorization.

If my interpretation was upheld, then good samaritans could have
a defense ("I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to do that").

But it wouldn't let all the "bad guys" off (the thing which the
legal system would be most worried about), because you could hardly
sustain an argument "I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to break
into the bank's secure computer system and change my account balance".

I'm concerned with that because if legislators think that the law
has become totally toothless (and can't catch anybody) then they
will build a new cannon (or increase the firepower on the current
cannon), and we are worse than back to square one.

With my interpretation, Oregon could even prosecute a spammer, if you
have told them that you don't want their spam and they keep sending it.
(Otherwise, Oregon should be able to prosecute a spammer in any case.)

] As a consequence, the law has only cannons to use to swat flies, and those
] cannons do a great deal of peripheral damage.

Yes, its a good point.

Something tells me legislators aren't smart enough to build a
fly swatter, and most probably don't even realise the difference.

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