UK Moves to Outlaw 'Hacker Tools'

twitter writes "New guidance rules for the UK's controversial Computer Misuse Act do not allay fears of impracticality, or of the banning of legitimate IT software: 'The government has come through with guidelines that address some, but not all, of these concerns about dual-use tools. The guidelines establish that to successfully prosecute the author of a tool it needs to be shown that they intended it to be used to commit computer crime. But the Home Office, despite lobbying, refused to withdraw the distribution offense. This leaves the door open to prosecute people who distribute a tool, such as nmap, that's subsequently abused by hackers.'" Somewhat similar legislation recently became law in Germany.

Comments

Just for the sake of argument-

[llamalad]

How about if such tools were only legal for licensed/certified IT and Information Security professionals?

Yes, this would mean our having to get certified as at least minimally competent at what we do, much like hairdressers and engineers.

The idea is analogous to how, in New York at least, it's illegal for random people to carry lockpicks.

Thought Tools

[nurb432]

I guess we should just arrest everyone that has a bad thought.

WIth 'bad' being relative to the administration in charge at the time in said country.

Will they be outlawing FTP or HTTP as well?