Slashdot Mirror
UK Parliament to ban DoS Attacks
Ian Hill writes "It seems that the UK government is not as technologically withdrawn as you may think.
This bill is an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act 1990 which bans Denial of Service attacks by name. It states that a person is guilty of an offence if they cause, or intend to cause, 'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system.'"
Now no one will ever do it!
I can p2p share as much as I like.. breaching copyright.. and the American's can't get me!!! Yippee!!!!!
And the first two people charged will be:
Ian Hill and CmdrTaco for causing a slashdotting of the UK Parliament server!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I wonder if this will get passed before this.
Nope, no sig
So we slashdotted them with a link. How ironic. Can I rat out Taco for a reduced sentence?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Wouldn't the slashdot effect be a way of degrading network performance?
Like installing windows?
(HA HA HA HA!! I Made a Funny!!!)
If the RIAA has any success in the US, then the IFPI can try the same thing with some member of parliament.
I knew they were behind the times but man... I bet they still program in QBASIC too.
Their site gets /.'d?
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
a hard drive tied to each testicle and tossed in the Thames. Or sat the very least a nice little midnoght visit from the SAS, and some 'questioning'.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
Slashdot to ban trolling.
I hope high gas prices are depriving your children, you fucking dumbass.
Every time I download a big movie or file from a fast server, I cause degredation to my connection, and so my computer system. How does one define at what point it is intentional, and at what point serious damage is done to the system?
...now that they have posted a link to the bill.
Watch as the Parliament's website chokes to a halt.
So when the RIAA kills a file-sharing server in Scotland because US law specifically permits it, and when they are indicted because UK law specifically outlaws it, whose national sovereignty will be degraded?
It's ironic that this story was just posted earlier. Quick, move all your P2P servers to the UK, you'll be safe from the RIAA!
Are the RIAA and MPAA exempted from this law?
Just curious.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
does this mean that RIAA and company will have to back off of this P2P-DoS madness?
Seriously when will software vendors and hardware vendors that sell thei products (not cue cat or linux) be responsible in part for system instabilities?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I have nothing else to say on this. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. Was too slow on the uptake.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I don't think that counts, because we don't have any malicious intent. We just want to read the news which they have chosen to make available, so what if a bunch of people want to do it at once, with or without slashdot's help. But if some vengeful geek were to post a my website hosted on my cable modem in an effort to kill my connection, then I might get pissy.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
> It states that a person is guilty of an offence if they cause, or intend to cause, 'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system.'"
If they changed the wording just a little bit it would make Spammers face charges.
Of course, the whole impairment bit would make Microsoft criminals too. You know, I mean more so. Actually, isn't Windows XP designed to impair system preformance, forcing a hardware upgrade? Hmmmm....
Later.
Has anything technologically(sp?) come out of the UK since WWII? Perhaps so, but its difficult to recall.
Should read: Has anything technologically(sp?) signifcant come out of the UK since WWII? Perhaps so, but its difficult to recall.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
For instance, if I send an email with my beta 133t mailer program to a buggy server (let's say a Lotus server) that crashes upon receiving my mail, am I liable for the DoS that other users will perceive?
Will the slashdot effect be officially illegal in Britian.
:-) I guess that'll change.
I remember one person telling me that the Slashdot effect is the only legal DoS attack.
~ kjrose
All in one day, one county considering making DOS's legal (for P2P networks), one county trying to ban the practice.
Interesting.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
now lemme get this straight... california wants to allow dos attacks, uk wants to ban dos attacks... where the hell is the damn consistency, damn it?! the fuckin' internet spans the whole fuckin' globe. so i think it shouldn't be governed at all!!!!!!111111 cuz no government agency could do the job, because everyone in government is stupid!!!!!!11111111 yeah, they can govern the sale of cabbage fine, but when it comes to cool things like internet, those jackasses in government are a bunch of boring old farts with gray hair and tires around their bellies and all they care about is fucking over every single person in the world in order to cater to the needs of huge fucking multinational corporations that want to implement the Mark of the Beast and turn us all to shit. because as the constitution says, "We the Corporations of the United States, in order to form a more perfect system of eternal perpetually increasing profits, hereby ordain and establish this Constitution..."
I think the house of Lords gets the prize for worlds ugliest govenment website. Maybe I should say that cause there are some other pretty ugly sites out there!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
: a person is guilty of an offence if they cause, or intend to cause, 'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised syste.'"
Does that include installing Windows?
I guess the US p2p users will have to setup anonymous reflectors in the UK. Ya gotta love the global age we live in!
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
(don't ask me for a reference, I found it on a 'Stupid Laws' page that has subsequently shut down)
DOSing is just another (admittedly mean) use for the computer. The fact that TCP/IP is built in a way that allows DOS attacks is no reason to try to control what free citizens do with their legally obtained computers.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I put Windows on my computer and it "impaired my performance" ... in more ways than one... :)
Seriously, would this law apply only to activities over the Internet, or would it also apply to software vendors as well?
-Rick
This is very good - I mean consider all of the damage that DOS could do to your machine. It's insecure, lacks multitasking, and requires users to configure EMM386 and HIMEM.SYS just to play Doom. Let's just hope that bin Laden doesn't have the technology available to perform a DOS install/attack on all of our machines.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
I noticed this draft a few weeks ago and thought about posting it here. Then I thought it might be better if Microsoft and the like did _not_ here about it until it became law.
As it is they'll try and get it amended so they don't get prosecuted for keeping on changing systems to keep Linux/Unix incompatability.
Andy
What happens if someone has 'hacked' your machine and used it to cause a DOS attack? Are you going to be held responsible as well?
*yawn* Yet another yank that thinks the US invented everything...
i hate you all
What about software like Lotus Domino that can be caused to DOS itself if not properly configured? Should people testing for open relays be held accountable?
Of course, there's still the "burden-of-proof", even in the case of spammers, but it would be nice to think there's a law that makes them vulnerable.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Just copyright denial of service attacks. Everyone knows copyright law is more powerful anyway.
I agree with you about BT and the railways, but the UK laws on broadcast television are excellent. Where else does the government harness the hordes of slack-jawed couch potatoes slumped in front of their televisions in order to fund the development and broadcast of freely available cutting edge radio programmes to entertain those who have things to do with their lives?
We can see it's redundant, dumbass. By telling us so, you are being, well, redundant.
. . .if they cause, or intend to cause, 'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system.'"
Everyday some random Joe Schmoe's sight is degraded and impaired by a barrage of requests from a slashdot article.
.....before the computer misuse act, the most common way to prosecute someone for something like that was under an law which related to stealing electricity. Could this law be used to prosecute hackers who it could be claimed have degraded the system's performance merely by logging in, or even portscanning by causing the target machine to do something it wasn't scheduled to do?
'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system.'
Does this mean that action will be taken against sites which load unwanted pop-up windows, which I don't request, that sucks up my already limited dial-up bandwidth?
And when my computer resources are low, and a site launches a couple of pop-ups, and freezes my comp, will that be included in the definition, also?
I do hope so.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
What do you expect? That's what hollywood tells them to think.
So will SPAM creators be targetable under the provisions? Massive amounts of email can easily be shown to take up CPU memory and processor time as well as all the messages consuming disk space. A small system can easily be overloaded by SPAM, so SPAM is clearly a source of degradation and impairment of function of the computer. Simply filling up an inbox on a system can prevent access to other mail and is demonstratable as denial of service.
SPAM is sent deliberatly with knowledge of the load affects.
The Computer Misuse act is criminal law not civil law anybody breaking goes to Prison.
Feel free to mod this as funny or troll, but I am perfectly serious. I like this bill: it's pithy, addresses a real problem, and is neither too narrow nor too broad. However, it occurs to me that the wording could be applied to writing a piece of buggy software.
"A person is guilty of an offence if without authorisation he does any act which causes directly or indirectly a degradation, failure, or other impairment or function of a computerised system or any part thereof. A person is guilty of the offence [...] even if the act was not intended to cause such an effect, provided that a reasonable person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an effect. [...] the act is without authorisation if the person doing it does not have the permission of the owner [of the relevant computerised system or part thereof]."
So, I write a piece of code with a memory scribbler in it, say passing an unitialised pointer to memcpy(). The "act" is my typing of that specific line of code. Any reasonable person would anticipate that act would cause a degradation or failure on a system. Note: "a" system, not "my" system. I didn't intend it to cause failure, but I should (reasonably) have realised it would. And once I distribute the code, the damage is caused on many systems, none of which are owned by people who gave me permission (explicitely or even implicitely) to perform the "act", i.e. write that scribbler.
I'm certainly stretching a point, but my scenario satisfies the letter (if not the spirit) of the law. There's already a concept of criminal negligence; this would just be a specific case of it. The part that makes me pause is that the offence is caused by the individual coder, not by her employer.
So while this probably will never effect me, it gives me a little more incentive to make sure that I lint every line that I write, and damn the deadline. But hey, on balance that's a good thing, right? ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
sure, but do they swallow?
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
Top story on Slashdot:
Your Rights Online: UK Parliament to ban DoS Attacks
Earlier on Slashdot:
Your Rights Online: Legalizing Attacks on P2P Networks
Yup, makes me PROUD to be an American, you bet!
Joe
I cant read it as it is currently having an intentional degradation of access.
If the law does not specifically single out INTENTIONAL DoS attack and list accidental as a hold-harmless then the law is really really bad.
you can instantly DoS any network by plugging a switch into it's self or another switch that is connected back to that one and letting one piece of broadcast traffic flow (create a resonance in essence). and many other accidental things (Oops, I broke a Fiber run in the street with my backhoe.. will I be charged with multiple counts of this offense as I just disrupted many many persons/companies/etc...
if it isnt specific that it only covers INTENTIONAL acts then it needs to be thrown out now.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Man I hate DoS attacks. Hacking is one of those crimes I can't help but quietly cheer. Like graffiti and car chases, I find my self, for no good reason, quietly behind the bad guys. But DoS is the exception. It takes no skill and no talent. It isn't cool, it's just lame.
You hear that, kids? You are *lame*
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The post say that the bill "states that a person is guilty of an offence if they cause, or intend to cause, 'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system." Isn't that a little open ended? What if someone, call him bob, uses a trojan to use someone, call him fred, elses computer to perform a DoS attack? could the person whos computer was used be a criminal? It seems like intent should be part of the crime. Another situation: fred goes to a site that is poorly run and opens a few windows at once but the system is already so messed up he causes a DoS by triping some M$ database error, is fred responsible for that? It seems like there should be a catch to stop fred from getting screwed by a stupid company. Just my 2 cents
So if you have website connected to your DSL, and the ISP changes the dynamic IP address... your site is down for 20 minutes while it contacts the dynamic dns service with the updated IP. Your site is down, your email is down, they've forced a denial of service on your website.
Does that count? It was intentional. It most certainly caused failure of service to your website. Any reasonable person with the knowlege of how DNS works could tell you a new IP will distrupt traffic. So will ISPs be forced to give out static IP addresses to anyone who asks?
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
the hovercraft, for example
Read the damn file! it reads:
A person is guilty of the offence in subsection (1)(a) even if the act was not intended to cause such an effect, provided that a reasonable person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an effect.
this means no more posting of links on slashdot linking to UK sites lest Taco becomes an international criminal.
somebody in UK, please write your queen about this.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Now that they are banned, they won't happen anymore. Hey look, is that a flying pig?
Great Linux Site
I assume there is an exclusion for internal load testing of systems, a common practice in any decent sized enterprise?
'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system'
This definition obviously includes spam. Excellent.
I suppose now that DOS has been banned, there will be underground DOS user groups popping up, and the need for new chalking for them to know where they should go, and when to meet. A whole new realm of ancient users staring at white text on a black screen in basements, closets, back alleys..far from the prying eye of those who would ban their sacred DOS.
Of course our friends and MicroSoft will be the ones looking closely at this ban. Because they'll want to insure you're upholding the EULA for that version of DOS you're using illegally. They want their cut of the action too!
UDUG, unite!
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
...over the the uk. then if the us decides to allow dos attacks on p2p networks, it will be illegal. :-D
I made the same mistake you did, typing "computer" when I meant "gun."
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"Chechire (Chester)"
Would that be Chester in the county of Cheshire? Perhaps "Chechire" is a middle English name, or older, that doesn't exist anymore.
Now we can finally get rid of pesky users that cause table scans and lock up our applications by eating CPU! Huzzah for this amazing piece of legislation!
Thanks,
--
Matt
"provided that a reasonable person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an effect"
This is what I like about many English laws: they put it into the perspective of a reasonable person. Do other countries use this kind of wording? Some of the crazy law suits coming out the US suggest not!
In case anyone cares: it's here
It'll be Rep. Howard Berman of California and Hilary Rosen of the RIAA.
Again, the brain-dead meta-moderators or the /. Moderation Nazi's mod-up a TROLL!
There must be some nice php code running here now to automatically up-mod any Anti-Microsoft post, regardless if it's a LAME-ASSED TROLL or not.
'nuff said!
ScottKin
I don't give a rat's behind about "karma" here or anywhere else. Don't like what I have to say here? Deal with it!
Well, how about this? This is great news considering that the States want to attack the P2P networks . Now the P2P networks will have a place to hide, because it will prove to be challenging to selectively remove the USA users, while avoiding those in the UK.
All in all, great news
Karma:This parrot is dead! (and so is the joke.)
Visual Studio .net Architecture edition comes with a tool that is able to perform load test which can see how fast a website can respond. If misused, this utility can be used as an DoS tool... would this fall under this law?
It seems on first impression that the wording of this bill would also forbid the practice of "tarpitting", in which a server deliberately slows its response to a client connecting to it, usually to discourage spammers and portscanners.
Well, the requirement for a license to watch TV give me a bit of a problem. Of course the Moderators have spoken... I cant believe that post hit -1... oh well....
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Note to self, move kazaa network to UK, without telling RIAA. Then, when they DoS, shut them down!
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
"It seems that the UK government is not as technologically withdrawn as you may think."
Funny how you put it. We in Finland have had that law for almost 20 years now. Originally for protecting telecommunications, but used for computer crimes alike.
Read on:
the act is without authorisation if the person doing it [...] does not have the permission of the owner
If you operate a public webserver you implicitly authorise Internet users to connect to it. A slashdotting is just a group of people doing something that has been authorised by the operator of the server, even if it is a very large group of people.
It seems to me that this could apply to any use of a network legit or not. if one person is surfing the web and using his connection for email the email performance is degraded slightly by the web traffic and vice versa. Since it doesn't appear that any limits are give as to how much degradation must happen before this law could be invoked any use of a network in criminal. It's a stretch sure, but when has that been a problem for lawyers?
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
Putting a site on the web invites every net appliance in the universe to connect to it. The web is a set of paths connecting gardens, people are allowed to wander anywhere. If you don't want the network world to connect to a port on your device you fire wall it.
This is different from targeted DOS where someone deliberatly sends many requests at a single port. Everyone is allowed to wander through an open garden gate. Occasionally we can expect a popular garden to get full. Driving a tank over the gate and destroying the garden is bad.
A number of people have mused whether this bill could be applied to spam, this would seem to be a moot point as according to the register The European Parliament has voted to ban the sending of unsolicited commercial email.
Yeah, I agree with that, but on the other hand that argument has been somewhat unconvincing when it comes to "deep linking" court cases. Your reasoning seems sound to me, but I think we'll need a few court rulings that public web servers do implicitly authorize all access before I feel too comfortable.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Lost Post!
What about using an Operating System that you know (and the authors know) has several security problems such that your computer could be easily used in a DOS attack simply by reading an email on said Operating System's default Email Client?
"It was not my intention but I did know it could happen".
Does this mean AV software is mandated by law?
-- My HARDWARE, My CHOICE.
Well.. I wonder how this could effect california's plan make DoS's of p2p networks legal.. like say the RIAA makes a DoS on kazaa and blows away a bunch of connections in britain.. I see WAR!!!!!!!!!!!
Who makes you Sig?
Also, when I took a tour of York, (abou 4/5 years ago,dunno if it's still true)it was still legal to take your thrash your wife at whipmawhopmagate. there was this big wooden....thingey for tying 'em to then...
Is it legal to do it to an ex-girlfriend?
My other first post is car post.
A malicious DOS fiend will cover his tracks and will not be found.
Frustrated Law Enforcers who can't get the guy they want, will get the guy they can.
A lack of criminal convictions shows incompetence, but fortunately, enough innocents will fall into this vaguely worded trap to keep the trials rolling at a fair clip.
You too are being a dumbass.
My other first post is car post.
"provided that a reasonable person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an effect."
so all those idiots who open exe attachments and get infected with klez or whatever and cause a degradation of mail service are now *criminaly* stupid? i'd love to see that stick
This should make it illegal for someone to include what UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act) calls "electronic remedies", sell the product in England and then use the electronic remedy to disable the product. Here's a link to the Inforworld site that has more information about UCITA.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
The Earl of Northesk who has introduced this Bill is a Conservative peer, and so this is not a Government Bill.
For better or worse it is therefore most unlikely to become law, especially so close to the end of the Parliamentary year. Though if the UK Government notice that there is support for it, they could decide to introduce their own Bill next session, I suppose.
have you not seen john livingstones website? www.e-brownpaperbag.co.uk
This ought to be an interesting international incident...
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
It states that a person is guilty of an offence if they cause, or intend to cause, 'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system.'"
*insert Microsoft joke here*
-R
Wouldn't this indict Microsoft. I think it could be effectively argued that Windows causes "degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system."
You are still allowed to shot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow from the walls of the city of York.
There are lots of dumb laws. In London, for example, taxi drivers should carry a bail of hay at all times.
This is not a Government Bill - so has no real chance of getting passed - especially as it has been introduced so late in the session. I don't think it's even had a 2nd Reading debate.
Nice try, guys. But you need to update yourselves on the UK constitution.
"somebody in UK, please write your queen about this"
Concerted attempts have been made to wield the clue-stick in the direction of parliament, however, they're still thick as pigshit when it comes to computers:
The bill, as it stands, would outlaw everything which causes somebody else's computer to slow down without the owner's permission. Read the bill if you think I'm exaggerating.
That means, anytime you use a computer for anything, you are to some extent a criminal if this gets passed. Again, our MPs need some computer experience, p.d.q. if they think this is a good solution to d.o.s.!
(p.s. side issue, but if a program of yours is insecure (even with GPL's disclaimed liability) and your program causes someone else's computer to slow down, or to divert any resources away from its normal functioning, you'll have broken the law if this piece of legislation gets passed. Software liability by the back door?)
The government is trying to take away your right to DoS people! First they take away your right to crack copy protection measures and steal IP. Now they have the nerve to ban DoS attacks! Bastards!
How about the technology that makes the Internet (and modern phone systems) work?
I kid you not, packet switching was invented in the UK, while the US was having trouble implementing that "ARPANet"" thing...
"Faith is the last resort of a desperate man" - Me
So if i use filesharing programs and get a dos from the RIAA I can get them sued?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
>somebody in UK, please write your queen about this.
No, but they may write *to* our Queen.
After all, they speak English.
That's what cookies are for.
If you deep link from somewhere else, well no cookie for you!
Couldn't most of Microsoft's programmers be arrested under this statute?
They propose a law to make those DoS attacks illegal.
We retaliate with another law to make any laws criminalizing our law that legalizes DoS attacks illegal.
They strike back with a law that makes it illegal to pass laws which make laws that that legalize DoS attacks illegal..
In furious anger and righteous indignation we pass a law tha...
I think I just hurt something in my head.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
"somebody in UK, please write your queen about this"
Didn't you know? We all know her here in the UK - I'll pass on your message next time I drop by for tea and scones...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Uh Oh . . . looks like the final nail in MicroSoft's coffin.
Slashdot: droud for nerds. Nothing matters.
bzzt. They're just posting a link; Of course, if you deep link, that could be illegal in some countries. Stupid countries. You follow the link. It's like the difference between rioting, and inciting a riot; inciting a riot is illegal, but unless they make inciting a DoS illegal, the slashdot effect isn't covered.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
i think it's actually "nonymous"
My life in the land of the rising sun.
This is entirely ridiculous, and is patent evidence of the dangers of non-technical people making technical decisions.
Depending on the nature of the "DOS" attack, there may or may not be any distinction between "DOS" traffic and "legitimate" traffic.
Example: Google could be sued for putting site "x" at the top of their results- causing an influx of traffic and slowing it down.
Utterly Fucking Ridiculous
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
I checked back on the original site (which I saved to my home machine's hard drive before the site went offline) and the spelling there matches what you have.
My original post was posted from memory this morning when I was at work so I didn't get it exactly right. So essentially, I spelled it wrong and stand corrected.
Doesn't this criminalize every Microsoft programmer since they routinely cause faulures?
... provided that a _reasonable_ person could have anticipated that the act would have caused such an
effect.
... thereby exempting /.ers.
Could this law be used to sue spammers? If a spammer uses your mail server to send out a ton of mail (thereby degrading its performance while the e-mail is being sent out), will that be considered a DoS attack under this bill?
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
we cant "write our queen" because this is incorrect english.
we can write TO our queen.
If you americans are going to use our language, please use it properly.
..actually :-)
But seriously, whatat do you mean by 'kill'? You mean that an association of commercial corporations will hack or dos a server hosted in Scotland?
This is definately not legal, even in the US. So, yes they would be extradited to Scotland (not the same as th UK) and then tried.
If you mean, seek legal redress for damages caused by the p2p server, then they would seek assistance from the legal authorities in Scotland and proceed.
ARM processors, public key crypto, the Sinclair C5...
Not quite correct. It's not only legal it's compulsory :-)
Waits for flaming death from welsh dragon
cheers
Phil
No but, yeah but, no but...
Planning to introduce a DRM system on computers will certainly causes directly or indirectly a degradation, failure, or other impairment or function of a computerised system or any part thereof, as any reasonable person can see.
I thought the idea was to punish offenders?
Concerted attempts have been made to wield the clue-stick in the direction of parliament, however, they're still thick as pigshit when it comes to computers:
:)
Maybe, since they obviously have some spare time on their hands, could hold a competition with the US Congress to find the least clueful legislator
The bill, as it stands, would outlaw everything which causes somebody else's computer to slow down without the owner's permission. Read the bill if you think I'm exaggerating.
It also appears to be utterly redundant, since the kind of things it seaks to outlaw are already illegal.
'degradation, failure or other impairment of function of a computerised system.'
Isn't that kinda like installing Windows XP?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Mens rea, mate, mens rea.
This is my World Wide Web of Whatever
The web.
(well sort of. Tim Berners-Lee is a Brit, but he was working at cern, in Switzerland, at the time)
... pavlovs dogs ...
Is that "Scotland" as in "Axis of Evil Scotland"?
Send in the Marines!
(Link here, but I imagine you're too lazy to click, so here's a copy:)
Slashdot should cache pages to prevent the Slashdot Effect!
Sure, it's a great idea, but it has a lot of implications. For example, commercial sites rely on their banner ads to generate revenue. If I cache one of their pages, this will mess with their statistics, and mess with their banner ads. In other words, this will piss them off.
Of course, most of the time, the commercial sites that actually have income from banner ads easily withstand the Slashdot Effect. So perhaps we could draw the line at sites that don't have ads. They are, after all, much more likely to buckle under the pressure of all those unexpected hits. But what happens if I cache the site, and they update themselves? Once again, I'm transmitting data that I shouldn't be, only this time my cache is out of date!
I could try asking permission, but do you want to wait 6 hours for a cool breaking story while we wait for permission to link someone?
So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.