Tougher Hacking Laws Get Support in UK

rainbowhawk writes to tell us BBC News is reporting that new laws outlining harsher punishments for computer crimes are gaining support in the UK. From the article: "The move follows campaigning from Labour MP Tom Harris, whose ideas are now being adopted in the Police and Justice Bill. There will be a clearer outlawing of offenses like denial-of-service attacks in which systems are debilitated."

Comments

Ambiguity

[kaleco]

The bill - which was being debated for the first time in the House of Commons on Monday - would also boost the penalty for using hacking tools.

What constitutes a hacking tool? A terminal emulator? Linux?

You think this is a joke?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Actually, Slashdotting almost certainly would be regarded as a deliberate DDoS attack.

1. It suddenly diverts massive numbers of requests to a particular system, resulting in an obvious denial of service.
2. The admins of that system are given no prior warning and have no particular reason to expect such a spike, so they can't do anything about it. (There goes the "if it's on the web, it's fair game" argument.)
3. The Slashdot admins know damn well about the Slashdot effect, and have consistently ignored public suggestions to improve their procedures.

I would expect that if the Slashdot editorial staff continue to allow linking in articles without giving any sort of warning or (better) seeking consent from the linked service's admins, the first case will go against Slashdot in a matter of minutes, and there will be genuine consequences for the admins. Let's hope the more enlightened editorial policy zillions of Slashdotters have been advocating for years results.

Re:You think this is a joke?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Reading the proposed wording, there is no definition of "DDoS". The offences are defined in terms of denying access to a system, and you would simply have to make the case that the Slashdot editors had the requisite knowledge and intent. The knowledge is clear; the Slashdot effect is widely known, and it is not credible that the editorial staff are unaware of the likely effect of linking to a site on the front page of Slashdot. The intent is less clear, but I'm sure you'd find a lawyer who could make a strong case for it. We might refer to a "DDoS attack" in conversation, but the use of zombie machines or whatever is irrelevant to whether or not an offence is committed under the proposed law.

Script Kiddies go free ;-)

[TekGoNos]

A person is guilty of an offence if--
    (a)
        he does any unauthorised act in relation to a computer; and
    (b)
        at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and
        the requisite knowledge.

So, if a script kiddy just tries everything without knowing what he does, he goes free?