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.

Comments

Do I see a pattern?

[alx5000]

From the country that criminalized privacy:

Let's convict Perl users.

I also heard that something called TPC or TCP is widely used by hax0rs to pwn remote servers. Wait till the UK Government can get their hands on it...

Re:Do I see a pattern?

[DarkShadeChaos]

So basically IT security experts can't test their own networks? I'm sure that will go a long way towards making the Internet more secure! Yeah I see a pattern, it's called ineffective and ignorant legislation... it seems to be quite popular these days.

Re:Do I see a pattern?

[Tackhead]

> From the country that criminalized privacy:
>
>Let's convict Perl users.

First they came for the COBOL programmers, and I was silent,
Because ADD KEYSTROKES TO SYNTAX GIVING OBFUSCATION was always lame.
They they came for the BASIC programmers, and I was silent,
Because I considered GOTO harmful,
Then they came for the C++ programmers, and I was silent,
Because I could still write FORTRAN in any language,
Then they came for the Perl programmers, and now the only way I can win an obfuscated programming contest is to write it in APL.

(First they ignore you, then they fight you, then they mock you, then they come for the Brainf*ck programmers and their heads explode.)

it's the nature of these tools

[yagu]

Just as these tools are useful diagnostic tools they are also handy tools for commiting crimes as described under this proposed law. That's the nature of networks and tools to manage them. To deem these tools and availability of such a crime because they could be used to commit a crime is insane.

This is akin to the recent proposal that all encryption key owners make their keys available to law enforcement. The expected eventual end result will be cautious users relinquishing valuable resources with criminals holding the trump card. This too is insane.

So, when an administrator gets the call to investigate what appears to be suspicious behavior, where do they go to troubleshoot the problem? Heck, peel away all the layers of this onion and it wouldn't be surprising to find hackers are behind this... get the government to suspend priveleges using FUD, and run rampant over the network infrastructure.

There is a hint of sanity from the article:

People who distribute networking vulnerability scanning tools such as nmap or Nessus could also be caught up in part (b), Clayton warned.

"The effect will be that people will stop offering these tools on their sites. Why should the only place to fetch Perl and nmap be from hacker sites in Eastern Europe, where the risk is that they carry Trojans? This makes the Internet less safe," argued Clayton.

I only hope the government will listen to that reasoning.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[Anne Thwacks]

I only hope the government will listen to that reasoning.

You obviously have not had any experience of the UK government. "Listening" and "reason" are not concepts governments in general are familiar with, and especially not the present UK government.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[rolfwind]

It's like outlawing chainsaws because they can hurt people, or forks and knives, etcetera. Some countries/areas already outlaw certain knives while allowing other, potentially just as deadly knives (chef's knives) to be carried around.

That's not to say, certain items should never be outlawed (nuclear/radioactive material), but with a proposed banning the legitimate uses have to be considered along with the illegitimate uses -- would a ban be more effective than simply punishing the specific people who harm others?

But I have a feeling that a politician/joe_public hear about hackers/programming and react reflexively without knowing much about the issue.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[Jazzer_Techie]

I think the issue is that Perl code can be classified as a form of encryption.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[lukas84]

Oh, they are quite familiar with listening.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[Khomar]

If you replace the software with guns, you will begin to understand the position of those who want the right to bear arms (modifications have been made).

This is akin to the recent proposal that all gun owners give their guns to law enforcement. The expected eventual end result will be cautious users relinquishing valuable resources with criminals holding the trump card. This too is insane.

Can guns kill people? Sure they can, but so can many other things that the typical person owns (knives, drills, cars). Guns are also tools, and used well they can be of great help. Many families in my area (Montana) rely upon guns for hunting to support their families (cheap meat). Unfortunately, hunting rifles fall into the category of a "sniper rifle" which comes under attack as an unnecessary weapon. And do not underestimate the value of having a weapon for self defense.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[Mistshadow2k4]

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.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[IAmTheDave]

Some countries/areas already outlaw certain knives while allowing other, potentially just as deadly knives (chef's knives) to be carried around.

This is easy to break down. It's all about one thing - the next election. Perception is huge, and instead of governing for the common good, people govern for the incumbant good.

Take knives for example. Giant chef knives have the perception of being used to cook yummy food. Crazy blade shape dragon jewel encrusted lock blade half-the-size-of-chef-knives type knives carry the perception of being used only to harm others.

So lawmaker X decides to latch on to that perception and propose a bill that outlaws the greater of the two perceived evils and then brag about how he is a champion of the people come next election cycle.

This is one thing term limits are meant to stay off... to whatever effectiveness. Point is, outlawing "hacking" tools like this is simply a grab for the spotlight. Who cares if the details are ironed out. See, the likelyhood is it won't make it out of committe, but come election time, Mr. X can say "I proposed a bill that would have made it safer to surf the internet, but my opponent Mr. Y (a former network admin, but we won't mention that) STOOD AGAINST this potentially LIFE SAVING measure!!"

Politics, pure and simple.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[mdielmann]

There is a presupposition in your statement that all killing is (equally) bad. Much of the world doesn't agree with this opinion. There are also far more categories than "self-defense" and "other". Again, there seems to be an implication with you associating "gathering food" and "murder" which I think much of the world would take issue with, as well.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[malsdavis]

This story is ridiculous! It is implying something totally different from what the law actually states in order to attract horrified readers. I bet the website is getting massive amounts of hits at the moment, but lets look at what the bill actually says:

"A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article --
(a) intending it to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3 [of the Computer Misuse Act]; or
(b) believing that it is likely to be so used."

This is a common-sense sense law which recognises software for what it is: a tool. It looks almost identical to the law which applies to other tools capable of being used to commit offences, i.e. knifes, hammers, axes, pieces of wood etc.. You don't see the police arresting people who use these, unless they use them to commit (or attempt to commit) a crime, so why would they suddenly arrest anyone who writes a pearl script?

I think it is good to see a government finally recognising software like the useful tool it is, but one which (like most tools) can be intentially misused to cause harm.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[Andrew Kismet]

guns have the exclusive purpose of killing (or for simulated killing, such as rifle ranges etc.), just the same as crossbows or any ranged weapon. However, a Chef's kife clearly has other uses that may outweigh their potential threat. Just like this networking tool.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[sconeu]

The problem is part b. As TFS said, Larry has to know that evil h4xx0rZ are likely to use Perl as part of their attacks. Therefore, he's guilty under part b of the proposed law.

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[JesseMcDonald]

Except that the law in this case does not make any distinction between the primary use for a given piece of software, and the possible uses of the software. If the author believes that the software will be used to do something illegal at some point in the future -- which is pretty much a given for any general-purpose piece of software (compilers, operating systems, scripting languages, libraries) -- then creating that software would earn the author a criminal sentence. Perhaps they wouldn't choose to apply it that way, but there is no way to be sure. They certainly could choose to do so, under the current wording of the law, and that is what worries people (myself included). I would rather not see programming become a heavily regulated and licensed profession.

Disclaimer: IANAL

Re:it's the nature of these tools

[julesh]

I guess if you're making stuff that you believe is -likely- to be used to break the law, you have a certain level of responsibility to try and make sure it doesn't. For example, I've refused on an occasion to write software for someone because of how it was going to be used (in this case, it was for managing unsolicited mailouts aka spam).

Let's take another case. This one is also real. Back in the 90s, I was involved with a project called NASM, a free assembler for Intel processors. Back in the early days, we had a rather nasty bug in the preprocessor that caused it to segfault if you tried to use a certain feature in a certain way (I forget the details, but it was hard to work around if you wanted that feature). The bug was reported, and we fixed it. However, it was clear from the way that it was reported that the reporter wanted it fixed because he needed that particular feature for a toolkit for virus writers.

So: do we fix the bug, and release software that is "adapt[ed] ... to assist in the commission of ... an offence under section 1 or 3" and "believing that it is likely to be so used" (in fact, we damn well knew for certain that it would be used that way), or do we sit on it?

Well, we sat on it for a while. But in the end, there were other users who needed that bug fixed. So the virus writers got their toolkit.

But if this law had been in place then, we'd have had to seriously consider whether we were committing a criminal offence that could earn us 2 years inside. And by my interpretation, we would have been.

No shit.

[AoT]

And I thought it was getting bad here in the U.S.

I guess a written constitution does have some utility.

Re:No shit.

[Master of Transhuman]

Oh, yeah, our Constitution has been working really WELL lately...

Now if we could get our President to read it once in a while...

Face it, folks, the US will go the way Britain is going - it's only a matter of time. ALL states end up in the same place - fascist dictatorships. As long as the public are gutless wimps - like this fool I've been arguing with over the NSA wiretaps yesterday - it is inevitable.

Using Perl Should Be A Crime

[Geldon]

... Or at least forcing someone to debug it should

Re:Using Perl Should Be A Crime

[Darby]

Come on now, that joke is getting really stale.

Seriously, who can't tell at a glance what this does just isn't paying attention:

#!/usr/bin/perl
                        +
                       @A=
                      (25,0
                     );@B=(0
                    ,24   +0)
                   ;@C=( 49,24
                  );@X=($")x(40
                 +9)         ;@_
                =(@X,       $/)x(
               25);$_[     $A[1*1]
              *50   +$A   [0]   ]=q
             /./;+ $_[$B [1*1] *1*50
            +$B[0]]=qq/./;$_[$C[1]*50
           +$C                     [0]
          ]="."                   ;@X=(
         $C[0*0]                 ,$C [1]
        );1   *1*               1*1   *1;
       while (394>             (join $",@_
      )=~y/.//){do{           $R=3*rand;@X=
     (((         int         (($         {(A
    ,B,C)       [$R]}       [0*0]       +$X[0
   ])/2+.5     )),int(     (${(A,B     ,C)[$R]
  }[1   *1]   +$X   [1]   )/2   +.5   +0)   ))}
while $_[$Z =$X[1 ]*50+ $X[0] +0]=~ /\./; $_[$Z
]=".";+system$^O=~/[wW]in/?"cls":"clear";pr int@_}

Well then...

[eosp]

Let's ban the English language because you can discuss crimes with it.

Re:Well then...

[dr_dank]

Then the criminals will use other languages

Hey Senor Bob, Let's robbo el banko!

This is great news for India!

[Anonymous Coward]

This sort of news is great for nations like India, Singapore and Malaysia. The more the Western world places completely unnecessary and unjustifiable limits on its use of such technology, the better off the non-Western nations are.

A strong economy, and the higher quality of life it may bring, depends heavily on innovation and progress. That is clearly being hindered by those who support such legislation. Companies won't be able to take advantage of the productivity gains one gets from using the technology that may be restricted.

In the end, it comes down to a matter of freedom. Those nations who are now free to innovate will do so, and will eventually prosper. Those who seek restrictive legislation over free innovation will see their wealth and standard of living decline rapidly.

Re:This is great news for India!

[BlueStrat]

I see this as a situation where the governments in places like India let the people have a little freedom for a while to get the economy going, and then fall back into government control

This may be what is currently happening in the US as well. The gov't granted more freedom in the 60's and 70's (civil rights, women's rights, etc.) to keep America's economic dominance going in the post-WWII boom. Does the fact that the gov't is beginning to restrict freedoms again (PATRIOT ACT, SOX, NSA wiretapping) have a correlation with America's waning economic dominance (BRIC [wikipedia.org])?

Actually, it's at once simpler and more complex than that. As population densities increase, there is not a linear increase in policing abilities and resources available to keep order among an increasingly dense population.

Detection of crime or other socially unacceptable or harmful behavior increases almost exponentially in difficulty, as does finding individual wrongdoers in a dense population.

So, as population densities grow, governments find themselves increasingly outnumbered by their own citizens, as regarding the amount of resources and human beings required to maintain any sort of order and what is practical to apply without that in itself sucking away so much manpower and resources that the society becomes unsustainable.

In the past, these pressures had a "relief valve" of unsettled lands to which populations could spread, and thus avoid having these situations reaching levels threatening continued viability.

This "relief valve" is coming to an end as the planets' reasonably-sustainable areas have mostly all been claimed and/or settled by this point in our history.

We as a species are in increasingly dire need for new areas in which to expand. Let us hope that colonization of places off-planet becomes a reality in time, before a world police state becomes reality, or at least before we as a species kill ourselves off...either by conflict and war, or simply choke on our own waste.

Cheers!

Strat

Compilers and Debuggers?

[mario_grgic]

So, how long before compilers and debuggers are made illegal? Especially the open source ones.

Re:Compilers and Debuggers?

[richieb]

I recomend you read the essay The Right To Read for a possible future.

Doesn't make sense...

[gmiley]

To compare this to another industry:

Person 1: Hi, I make hammers, would you like to buy one? You can use them to "hammer" nails into things, really quite nice for building houses and such.

Person 2: Wow, this is nice. I'll take one!

Law: Woah woah woah! Hold on right here... This "hammer" you got here... yeah well that can be used to bash someone in the head, so... it's now illegal, you'll have to come with me now. That's right, hands behind your back.

I've never understood the idea that because a tool can be used to commit a crime, that it inherantly makes the tool evil.

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[ScentCone]

I've never understood the idea that because a tool can be used to commit a crime, that it inherantly makes the tool evil.

Welcome, fellow NRA member.

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[vux984]

Welcome, fellow NRA member.

The express purpose of guns, with the exception of hunting rifles, is to shoot people. (Hint: you don't use handguns or automatic weapons to hunt deer.) Many people buy these guns for their ability to shoot people, even if they *never* intend to use it in that capacity.

Now suppose there was a magical way to prevent guns from shooting people. I predict that the NRA would, for the most part, lose interest in guns. And demand for them in general would drop off sharply as all the "self-defense", or "home invasion/tresspassing", or "deterrent/security" arguments go out the window if the gun can't shoot at people.

However, if the same magical system could be applied to hammers preventing them from being used for bashing heads the market for hammers would be completely unaffected.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm *not* suggesting we should ban guns. But I am saying its wrong to equate the gun controversy with a similiar view on hammers or perl.

Its a false comparison. Most guns have no other purpose. Even people who simply collect guns would likely find themselves uninterested in collecting guns that couldn't be used to shoot people. On some level they just wouldn't be guns anymore.

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

The express purpose of guns, with the exception of hunting rifles, is to shoot people.

So? Some nails need hammering, some people need shooting.

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[turbod]

"The express purpose of guns, with the exception of hunting rifles, is to shoot people."

There are three incorrect assumptions here:

1) Historically, all guns were developed as a result of warfare. Most of the long range hunting rifles owe some of their development to military history. Guns were a followup development of previous projectile launching weapons used in war, when gun powder was made available. It probably wasn't too long after that some rich king or general decided that he could use it for the hunt too.

2) Guns are used often in sport --- handguns too! There are many people in countries where using a gun for self defense is banned. However, they still pay for their weapons and store them at a club, just so they can punch holes in paper targets. This is trully endless fun.

3) Handguns are often used in big game hunts as a back up weapon of choice, in case the hunter becomes the hunted. There are thousands of stories printed, and probably many more that are not, about people who had to use a 357 magnum or 44 Magnum to bring down a charging bear or boar, that they had intended to kill with a long gun, but somehow ended up on the receiving end of an attack.

Additionally, if guns could be made to magically not shoot people, I'd still love my guns. Too much fun on the range otherwise...

For self defense, I'd simply move to long bladed weapons (which are much more deadly in close combat). Oh wait, they are attempting to outlaw those in England too :)

TurboD

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[jez9999]

I've never understood the idea that because a tool can be used to commit a crime, that it inherantly makes the tool evil.

Maybe not evil, but overly dangerous. I bet most NRA members would agree that owning a tank, bunker-buster or bazooka should be illegal. How about ricin? They're all 'tools', but put to the wrong use (hard to use some of them any other way), their effects on society are too nasty to allow general ownership.

Having established that, we've established that there's no absolute "all tools are OK" rule, it's a matter of drawing the line. So I guess my question would be, why do most of you gun supporters draw the line at guns, and not bazookas, missiles, tanks, stealth bombers, etc.?

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[killjoe]

"I am shocked that people think it is ok to break in a house."

Great. I am very impressed with your shock. I am amazed by your shock. Oh wait a minute you are shocked at a straw man never mind. Did anybody say it was OK? Besides you I mean.

"If someone breaks into my house the big question is does my roommate detain or kill them with his .357 or do I do it with my .45. They have made the choice that they do not respect my property so I will return that lack of respect. "

Of course you can kill them but what happens once your hard on goes away? You have just shot somebody for the crime of trying to steal your TV. If you were not home they might get a misdemenor or a maybe a light jail sentence but you took it upon yourself to give this guy the death sentence without even a jury or a trial. I guess some living human beings life is worth less to you then your TV. I guess you would rather snuff out somebody then to try and get your TV back by reporting the crime and talking to your insurance company or the police.

I get the feeling that the argument I just laid out doesn't really wash with you. I get the feeling that you are not capable of understanding other peoples pain. To you a human life is worth a TV. Take my TV, I kill you, we are even!.

All I can hope for is that you do actually kill somebody. Then you will find out that it's not so simple as "he was in my house so I shot him". You see it's not really legal to kill people who are in your house. there will be a trial, you will most likely end up in jail with the rest of the murders. At best you will be sued civilly and lose all your pocessions not just your TV.

Re:Doesn't make sense...

[LordWill]

The problem with tools that help everyone is that they help everyone. They help the good guys and the bad guys.

Good or evil is in the heart of the wielder.

Illegal Tools

[pjwhite]

I suppose crowbars and hammers should be outlawed, too, since they can be used for burglary.

Shitty Government.

[Ckwop]

This is more sensationalist shit like the story about the RIPA. The law isn't very effective because the police can't force you to hand over keys that are used only to ensure the integrity of messages. This basically means that stuff like SSL, SSH and Zimmerman's Zphone are safe against seizure.

I submitted a story on this but obviously the Slashdot editors care more about exciting headlines than the sober truth. I wrote an essay in 2003 and you can read it here.

I've not read the act but I can already guess how useless it will be. The short and long of it is that it is very tough indeed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone that you put the software there. Believe me I know, I was a witness in a Child Porn case. The defence won because when we found the content we didn't follow CPS guidelines in the data recovery method.

Even worse, a hackers machine can look very much like a hacked machine. Hackers, after all, use one machine to get to the next. How are you going to prove they aren't the innocent bystander - BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT.

Yet more time wasted by an incompetent government that can't even deport convicted foreign criminals.

Simon.

Make computers illegal!

[9mm Censor]

Computer hackers tend to use computers to commit computer hacker crimes. The link between hackers and computer systems is enhertiently intrinsic, therefore banning the use and ownership of computer systems would greatly reduce computer crime!

Re:Make computers illegal!

[saboola]

That will only stop the sloppy hackers. The good ones will pick up a telephone and start making the necessary modem tones with their mouths.

Re:Make computers illegal!

[9mm Censor]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=safa ri&rls=en&q=define%3A+inherently&btnG=Search Ok, I cant spell. Gas me.

Want to reduce crime?

[MarkByers]

If there were no laws there would be no such thing as crime. To reduce crime, we should remove laws, not add more.

Re:Good riddance

[sarabiz]

They already want to ban pointy knives, so why not hammers?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/international/eu rope/27knife.html?ex=1274846400&en=cef76721be98494 c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

It's easier to fight the tool than the person

[MikeRT]

Leftist leaders even more than right wing leaders tend to have a hard time accepting the fact that you can do bad things with different tools. They also have a hard time blaming the person for their use of it. Conservatives do it with drugs by blaming the drugs for the armed robbery to feed the habit. Leftists do it with weapons. It's easy to blame a drug, a gun or a scripting language for a crime. It allows you to not be "judgemental" toward a person who is just an asshole. Neither side likes to admit that these things are totally the person's fault, derived from some inner flaw in the person's character that causes them to get high and rob, shoot to murder someone or hack to steal a person's money.

Re:It's easier to fight the tool than the person

[ChristTrekker]

You're right, it's the current "politically correct" culture we live in. You don't want to be judgmental, you don't want to "discriminate", don't want to hurt anyone's feelings you know.

Sorry, but I'll call a spade a spade. If you're a jerk, then you are, and trying to shift blame onto your childhood/current circumstances doesn't fly with me. You had a choice. You made a bad decision. Tough cookies. Grow up and be responsible.

Bans Nmap Too

[fv]

TFA also states that "People who distribute networking vulnerability scanning tools such as Nmap or Nessus could also be caught up in part (b), Clayton warned.". A quick reading of section 41 seems to bear that out. As author and maintainer of the Nmap Security Scanner, I am more than a little concerned.

I'm certainly not going to let anything as silly as some U.K. law stop me from distributing Nmap, but I also don't want to become like Dmitry Skylarov the next time I give a presentation in England. And even if (as I would expect) the rest of the world ignores this, it could have a chilling effect on important security tools and research from U.K. citizens. Think of all the good research and tools that David Litchfield from London (NGS Software) has brought us. And my London friend Hoobie brought us the free Brutus password cracker, which appears to be prohibited by this bill.

The good news is that this is just a proposal. So I would join the chorus in urging our British friends to make their voice heard against this silly bill.

-Fyodor
Insecure.Org

Re:Bans Nmap Too

[morgan_greywolf]

TFA also states that "People who distribute networking vulnerability scanning tools such as Nmap or Nessus could also be caught up in part (b), Clayton warned.". A quick reading of section 41 seems to bear that out. As author and maintainer of the Nmap Security Scanner, I am more than a little concerned.

I think that was the plan...but the really stupid thing and obvious thing that people seem to be missing is that tools like nmap, nessus and ethereal serve legimate and necessary purposes.

I have no idea how I would be able to harden the security of networks I maintain without these tools. Nmap shows me what ports are open, for instance. Without that tool, I have no idea and I'm just guessing that the firewall rules, etc., I have set are correct or are even actually being enforced by the firewall. It would be like writing a program without being able to compile it or writing HTML without passing it through a validator or even having the ability for an HTML preview.

That's patently ridiculous. Network security is a very complicated thing and it would be even more complicated without tools to test it's strength. Thanks for the vote of confidence -- nmap is one of the many essential tools in my network security toolbox and I've been using it forever.

Re:Bans Nmap Too

[Handpaper]

It's not just a proposal. It's more than halfway into law:

It was passed by the House of Commons earlier this month, and will be considered by the House Of Lords over the next couple of months

Once again we must rely on the Lords to stop the knee-jerk stupidity of the Commons foisting more draconian laws upon us. Let's hope they continue to do their job.

Just a reminder for those not familiar.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a lot of Americans are confused by the British political system, so I'd like to explain it to them.

First of all, the Labour Party has very little to do with the general, working-class labourers of the UK. So don't think of them as being liberal, or supportive of workers rights.

In the US political system, they're most like the Republicans. Basically, they're neo-conservatives. That means that they threw out what might have been the most beneficial of conservative ideals, and instead replaced them with the worst of the liberal convictions.

Unlike actual conservatism, they take a strong stance against personal freedoms. They are supportive of near-paranoid domestic surveillance and incomprehensible legislation designed to limit liberty.

Unlike actual liberals, they do not care what is best for society as a whole. They are often very supportive of corporations, and are often willing to use their power to mislead the public if it will help bring financial profit to their corporate supporters.

Hopefully that clears up the situation somewhat. We have to realize that even if they claim to be "conservative", neither the Republicans (in America) or Labour (in the UK) actually are.

Re:Bits are TEH EVAL!

[Rob T Firefly]

We can't get rid of all the bits! Are you mad??

I say we just outlaw those hideously dangerous 1's, and let us keep the safe, agreeable, non-pointy 0's.

This is getting out of control.

[infojunkie]

Is it just me or are legislators and government officials all nuts.

While they're at it, why not just criminalize the use of ANYTHING that could be used for less than honest purposes...

Let's start with any programming language that is used to write the tools that are available to the bad guys. hmmm... that would potentially be all of them... so we may as well just ban computers in general... and cell phones, PDAs and anything with microchips... There goes my new toaster... Can't let the bad guys get my toast.

But... wait there's more. Why not ban anything that could lead to the knowledge of how to do this crap in the first place? TV and radio are gone because of the whole microchip thing. Burn the books and close the schools. That way the kids don't learn about technology that may lead to tools that might be used by bad people for possibly malicious puproses...

And just to make sure that no one ever learns about it again, let's "silence" all programmers, scientists, researchers, teachers, librarians, hobbyists, and anyone who's ever operated a computer or even entered a Radio Shack.

I'm still not sure why vehicles are allowed on the road considering all the contraband and stolen possessions they could be used to transport. Coat hangers, hair pins, and any sharp tool. Instuments of evil, all of them.

Next up: Legislating the use of whatever part of the brain is the basis for the formation of new thoughts and notions.

Action?

[fandog]

I sure hope if you're from the UK and posting here that you're also voicing your complaints to your gov't officials who are proposing and voting on this stuff...

Let them know it's horsecrap before businesses have to start moving out of the UK to survive.(!)

criminalizing possession

[ChristTrekker]

Criminalizing the mere possession of something just because it could potentially be used in a crime is pretty stupid. Until you do something that actually harms someone, where's the crime? "Innocent until proven guilty" remember? Just because someone has means, and could find opportunity, doesn't mean he has motive to commit a crime. Don't you need all three? Mens rea, anyone? All these sorts of laws do is make criminals out of normal, honest, otherwise-law-abiding people.

Until you stab someone, your knife is just a useful cutting tool. Until you shoot someone, your gun is just a useful self-defense and hunting tool. Until you crack something, your network analysis software is just another tool. There is nothing inherently bad/evil about them. Merely possessing them does not twist a normal person into a psychopathic criminal.

Anyone else think we'd have better lawmakers if we plucked some names at random from the phone book?

Yay

[Rorian]

This makes me feel so much better about moving to the UK as an IT professional..

Why must they always pick on the good, honest guys while the criminals just dodge by their "preventative measures" every time?

"Innocent until proven guilty"

[nuggz]

Sorry innocent until proven guilty is obsolete.

They found it was inconvenient to prove someone did something before punishing them.
Much easier to simply accuse and punish, how else can they prosecute thought crime.

Seizure and liquidation of the property of people accused but never convicted of a crime does happen, and has for a long time.

Criminal justice reform is unlikely to happen because people see this as soft on crime, they just want to punish someone there is little political incentive to work on making sure they get the right person.
Plus when there is a wrongful conviction, they just blame the defendants lawyer.

The innocence of tools

[carpecerevisi]

At the risk of bordering on repeating the hammer/etc. analogies: "Nothing is intrinsically good or evil, but its manner of usage may make it so." Saint Thomas Aquinas

WHEN PERL IS OUTLAWED.

[atarione]

Only outlaws will have

#!usr/bin/perl

tshirts http://andrewhitchcock.org/index.pl?page=perl

What is going on in the UK?!

[lawpoop]

I'm a United States citizen. While I am horrified about what's been going on currently in the US, it doesn't really suprise me, given our history as the self-appointed Savior of Europe after WWII, defender against communism, the Vietnam war, etc.

With our two-party political system, both parties have to pander to their base, which, to simplify a lot, is socialists for the Democrats and facists for the Republicans. Now that the republicans are in ascendancy, I'm not surprised that corporate power is going unchecked, and those who don't believe in government are unable to govern competently. After 9/11 burst our bubble that oceans would protect us from what's going on in the rest of the world, and the fact that we're waging a 'war on terror' that will never end, I'm not surprised that people would become fanatical and fall in line behind a militaristic administration.

However, what the hell is going on in Great Britain that gives political cover for this radical infringement into the rights and privacy of the people? Didn't the U.K. defeat Facism that threatened to overrun the country? Hasn't the UK been fighting terrorism from Ireland relatively sanely for decades? Doesn't the parliamentary system give *some* power to other policital groups which are somewhat left-leaning?

Re:What is going on in the UK?!

[mickwd]

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.

Unless I'm mistaken...

[DragonWriter]

...in both Britain and the US, laws phrased the way this is are usually construed such that, in order to commit an offense, the person making, distributing, etc., an article would have to have the intent or belief that that particular instance would or was likely to be used for criminal purposes. It wouldn't outlaw, e.g., making a software tool with the belief (or even near-certain statistical knowledge) that, among all the users, some number of them would use it illegally.

That's not to say its not still overly broad, unnecessary, chilling, etc., even so, but the idea that it amounts, if enforced across the board, to a ban on Perl on the basis that the creator knows that someone, somewhere is likely to end up using them illegally is probably greatly overstated. At least, as I understand things.

Seems to me...

[eth1]

...that a good way to fight this would be for every single government IT worker to follow this law TO THE LETTER! "Sorry boss... can't do that anymore... here's why." When the lawmakers can't get their email and have their security breached because their own people didn't have the tools to do the job, maybe they'll see some sense. And, of course, if they fire you because you wouldn't do something illegal, that's probably a big settlement coming your way...

Re:Bits are TEH EVAL!

[shawb]

But small children will choke on 0's.

Won't someone PLEASE think of the CHILDREN????!!??

from the UK

[ElephanTS]

I grew up in the 70s in London when the IRA were fairly routinely blowing stuff up. At no stage did anyone suggest compulsory ID to deal with this. Mainly the bins were taken off the trains and eventually a 'ring-of-steel' (meaning police checkpoints at increased presence) around the City Of London (our Wall St). Then somehow by the end of nineties we had become the most surveilled people on Earth.

Post 911 the talk of terrorism never went away. And then 7/7 came along and the paranoia and suspicion just went sky-high. Now we too lived in a country where any change of law could be carried off with the mere mention of the T-word. (Either that or the other one, the P-word, the Glitter-crime). This year Blair has is own little version of the Patriot act coming into force, one where he can issue laws without recourse to Parliament as long as they don't include tax increases or a prison penalty greater than 24 months.

Electronic sniffers are be trialed on a few parts of the underground smelling for explosive traces and there is a scheme in planning for a countrywide network of number plate recognition cameras recording all vehicles on a gigantic DB. Most London Transport users use RFID (oyster) in replacement for the old tickets and all this data is recorded. We will have RFID national ID soon at a cost of around £90 per person, compulsory. I could go on but here's a link or two to go on with.

http://www.no2id.net/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/

So, as Orwell (real name: Eric Blair) predicted, we really are heading for a BB state. It's obvious that the UK is the USs puppy dog and we are in the 'endless' war just as long as you are. Really the UK is just another state of the USA. Maybe even quite a powerful and important one at that.

There is a saying in England "Watch America that's what here will be like in 10 years time" - now it seems we've just about caught up or even exceeded what's going on in the US.

Perl bug report

[mangu]

There is a bug in your program, in the last line "print" has been printed as "pr int".

See, Perl isn't hard to debug at all!

Re:"President" Bush?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presidential Aide: Great news, Mr President!
President George Bush: I get to play Dumbledore in the next Larry Potter movie?
Presidential Aide: Ah, no, Sir, no, not from Warner Brothers; we still haven't heard back from them yet, Sir, no. It's from the U.N. Our weapons inspectors are going in.
President George Bush: And why should I be interestificated in that?
Presidential Aide: Because we need a report, Sir, before we invade Iraq.
President George Bush: No we don't! Besides, we're not invading Iraq. We're invading Tiraq. Take a look at the survalence pictures.
Presidential Aide: Sir... Sir, that's not 'Tiraq', that's 'Tie Rack'; it's a store in Britain that sells ties.
President George Bush: That's just what they want you to think. You see, they're called 'Tie Rack', but they also sell cufflinks and underpants. And are we meant to acceptify that it's mere coincidenecification that they lurk in every airport and rail station.
Presidential Aide: Sir, if we invade Tie Rack, you're going to be a laughing stock.
President George Bush: You mean I have a choice?

it happened once

[stachu trawki]

Note that this is exactly like banning guns because "someone can use them to commit a crime".

And yes, that's INSANE!

Whatever you say - 150-200 years ago people were as used to having a gun or being able to shoot their own bottles as we are to being able run perl or test an exploit on our own machines. Arguable the former was even more common!