Internet Access and Computer Fraud Laws

DrJimbo writes "Groklaw has an explanatory article covering the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in layman's terms. The article discusses legal precedents that might make it illegal to access much of the internet. The article is a response to a claim by SCO that IBM violated the CFAA by downloading GPL'ed software from SCO's public HTTP and FTP sites."

Comments

Re:What about deep linking?

[prshaw]

>> The Internet is considered a public network, where everyone can assume it is OK unless specifically blocked.

Is this a legal ruling, or just how we would want it to be?

Do things like the sassar worm change this? Do they have implicit access to your computer? How about a web indexing robot? What are the rules as to what does or does not have implicit access.

I didn't read the article, this is /. after all. But from the comments posted I gather that the court was ruling that access is more like the physical rules.

If you are walking down a street and see a building with a door in it. Have you been implicitly granted access to the inside of that building? It's not a simple yes or no answer. It depends on several factors, is it a business area, are there signs advertising something (and what is the wording on the signs), and so on.

I know of no legal ruling that would make the internet any different. (But there very well could be)

I am not saying the ruling is how we want it, but we do end up living with the legal rulings and not just how we would like them.