Deleting Files is a Crime?

cemaco writes "A former employee of International Airport Centers, who is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with them, returned his company laptop as required. Hoping to find incriminating evidence, I.A.C. attempted to retrieve deleted information from the laptop in question with no success. This employee had beaten them to the punch. He had used 'secure delete' software, in order to make sure nothing could be recovered. He is now being charged with a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act."

Comments

Only crime is getting caught

[PingXao]

Everyone is a criminal now. Or soon will be. So the only real crime is getting caught. Unless you can buy yourself some American Justice. For the record, only public officials with lots of influence or mega-rich corporations can do that. SO start sucking up and pray they don't come after you. Because you're guilty.

Re:The judges are flat out wrong

[Em Ellel]

If the company did not have a backup policy for the laptop, they did not take reasonable precautions to secure and protect their data.

Should the same be true if a hacker connects to your servers and wipes them out? If you did not take reasonable precautions, backups, etc. Is is YOUR fault and the hacker is guilty of NO crime??? If you read the actual court opinion and not the half-assed /. writeup, this is EXACTLY what the court considers have happend here. He no longer had AUTHORIZATION to access the computer in question, yet he logged in and destroyed data, much like the hacker in example above.

For the courts to presume that such a loss constitutes an actual crime is ludicrous.

The loss itself is not the crime here, criminal trespass with intent to cause damage is (or more exactly "may be", as this is not a conviction)

-Em