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UK Law May Criminalize IT Pros
An anonymous reader writes "More worrying news from the UK. This time, a bill meant to fight cybercrime may make it illegal to use or make available network security tools available, just because they could be used by hackers." From the article: "Clayton cited the Perl scripting language, created by Larry Wall in 1987, as an example of a useful technology that could fall foul of the law. 'Perl is almost universally used on a daily basis to permit the Internet to function,' said Clayton. 'I doubt if there is a sysadmin on the planet who hasn't written a Perl program at some time or another. Equally, almost every hacker who commits an offense under section 1 or section 3 of the CMA will use Perl as part of their toolkit. Unless Larry is especially stupid, and there is very little evidence for that, he will form the opinion that hackers are likely to use his Perl system. Locking Larry up is surely not desirable.'" A note that this is equally confusing but separate from yesterday's story about the UK government wanting private encryption keys.
Hmmm, I have to respectfully disagree. Guns are made to be able to kill, whether in self-defense or not. This proposed law is more like outlawing surgeon's knives because Jack the Ripper (supposedly) used one, never mind that surgeons use them to save lives; network tools are used to hack networks but are also used to secure them. That's the most apt comparison I can think of.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
This may sound a little partisan and controversial, but the problem is basically Tony Blair.
Since coming to power, he's increasingly become a control freak.
He's emasculated the house of lords, under cover of "reform", while seemingly trying to block the option (favoured by many MPs) of a largely-elected house of lords (because a largely-elected second chamber would be a legitimate "check and balance" on his authority, as compared to a set of nominated place-men). (See for example here).
He's also marginalised parliament - his government carries out the minimum of "debate" there now, merely using it as the place to anounce previously-decided policies. There was a big fuss recently, little reported, about the government trying to pass a law allowing them to change legislation at will, without any debate at all, under cover of "reducing red tape" (see here.
Even within the cabinet, he seems to fire anyone who seems remotely a threat or who disagrees with him in any way (with the exception of Gordon Brown, the chancellor (and probably the next Labour leader), who is powerful enough to be left alone).
Since he's been prime minister, there have been dozens of crime bills, making hundreds of new criminal offences (e.g. see here.
He's increasingly making noises about the criminal justice system being "out of touch" (i.e. not automatically just doing what he says), in a seeming bid to further curtail their powers. For what he's already achieved, see, for example, here.
He himself is becoming increasingly irrational and out-of-touch to the extent where his party are starting to think of him as a liability, let alone what the country now thinks of him. The more out of touch he gets, the determined to get his own way he becomes. He's done a lot or damage to this country's constitutional processes, a lot of damage to its reputation (via Iraq), and the sooner he goes, the better.