Washington State Outlaws Spyware: "'Today, the Governor of Washington signs a a bill outlawing spyware (bill history) which imposes penalties of $100,000 per violation. Spyware is broadly defined. It includes everything from changing a browser's bookmarks or homepage settings, 'Opening multiple, sequential, stand-alone advertisements in the owner or operator's internet browser', keystroke-logging, taking over control of the computer, modify its security settings, and even 'Falsely representing that computer software has been disabled.' But here is my favorite: 'Prevent, through intentionally deceptive means, an owner or operator's reasonable efforts to block the installation or execution of, or to disable, computer software by causing the software that the owner or operator has properly removed or disabled automatically to reinstall or reactivate on the computer.' Microsoft and Ebay both testified in support of the bill. On May 10th, a similar law banning Internet and email phishing was also passed.'"
now those who know me, know i am super free speech guy, so i think any limits on code are not a good thing. however that said, it seems to me i remember something about unauthorized use of computers being illegal, and using instrumentalities of interstate commerce (the net) to do so seems like it would make it a federal crime. assuming those two points, and again i am a bit rusty here, but seems like its already probably illegal. if you use the net to mess with my machine with out my permission (or some fraudulently obtained assent) seems like i should either get to beat you ass or the feds should!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment