Slashdot Mirror
Court Rules Workers Did Not Overstep On Stealing Data
MikeatWired writes "In a somewhat startling decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that several employees at an executive recruitment firm did not exceed their authorized access to their company's database when they logged into the system and stole confidential data from it. The appellate court's decision affirms a previous ruling made by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The government must now decide if it wants to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The judge wrote that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, under which they were charged, applies primarily to unauthorized access involving external hackers. The definition of 'exceeds authorized access' under the CFAA applies mainly to people who have no authorized access to the computer at all, the judge wrote. The term would also apply to insiders who might have legitimate access to a system but not to specific information or files on the system Applying the language in the CFAA any other way would turn it into a 'sweeping Internet-policing mandate,' he wrote."
No, that's not what it says at all. This ruling is saying that the CFAA applies to only to people using technological means to circumvent their restrictions, not people misusing the the access they do have. In this case, the users had legitimate credentials to the database. Obviously, they were not supposed to use that access to steal the data, but doing so is not "exceeding authorized access" it's simply theft. This is common sense. For a non computer analogy, at my old job I had a key to the storeroom. If I were to use that key to open the store room and steal a bunch of shit, I would not be charged with breaking and entering. That's not to say I won't be charged with a crime (and the accused in TFA were charged with other crimes), it just means I did not violate that specific law. The CFAA was created to prosecute hackers, it should not be used against anyone who does something on a computer that the owner of that computer doesn't like. This ruling is a good thing.