From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Wed May 08 2002 - 15:37:36 MDT
[A-KO] I can't believe this BULLSHIT. Computer criminals who put human lives at risk, either knowingly or through "reckless" behavior, could face life in prison under the legislation. Smith's bill would loosen those requirements to enable service providers to report threats that are not immediate, and would protect them from lawsuits when they do so. Providers would face penalties if they did not store electronic records, such as customer e-mails, for at least 90 days.
[Hermit] nods
[irvken] Computer criminals - should they remain unpunished?
[Hermit] The punishment is ridiculously out of proportion, introduced by people who don't understand the environment and thus introduciung punishment for "slippery slope" threats.
[Hermit] The average time served in the US for murder is 8 years (and fewer than 50% of murders result in a conviction). You can't legitimately sentence on the basis of "it might be", but only on grounds of "proven intent" and "harm done." Otherwise, every person who climbs behind the wheel of a car should be locked up for life... After all, if you hit somebody with a car, you might kill them, and if we made this parallel to the proposed law above, then intent is proved by the fact that you knew this could happen and yet you still drove it....
[Hermit] The parallel is not ridiculous. And I spend a ridiculous amount of my life trying to stop people breaking into systems.... We don't need laws like this, which are solutions in search of problems designed to make the proposer look "tough on crime" but in fact simply make them look ridiculous to anyone of sense. They are not harmless, because if implemented, they will undoubtedly fuck up some of the brightest, nicest, most caring people we have.
Extended and expanded from an IRC discussion held on #virus at irc.lucifer.com:6667 (also accessible via the "chat" button on the BBS at http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs).
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25469>
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