PCs Posted No Trespass

FreeLinux writes "USA Today has a story about a federal court ruling stating that Spyware can constitute illegal trespass. From the article: 'A federal trial court in Chicago has ruled recently that the ancient legal doctrine of trespass to chattels (meaning trespass to personal property) applies to the interference caused to home computers by spyware. Information technology has advanced at warp speed with the law struggling to keep up, and this is an example of a court needing to use historical legal theories to grapple with new and previously unforeseen contexts in Cyberspace.'"

Comments

Makes Sense to Me

[Trip Ericson]

But how much spyware is installed by the user unknowingly, via misleading dialog boxes or other methods in which the user is fooled into installing it? I somehow doubt that would fall under the trespassing rule, due to being allowed in, no matter how sleazy the entry. I can understand those that are installed without the consent of the user through security holes, but those are a minority of the cases. The overwhelming majority gets in through the user inadvertantly allowing it in.

Re:The Feds Have Taken The First Step

[MichaelSmith]

All of the ones I've worked on are required to post a warning that they are government property and that unauthorized access is considered criminal trespass.

At a site where I once worked we had to change our login message from "Welcome to $machine" to "Unauthorized access prohibited" because "welcome" was considered a statement that unauthorized access was permitted.