Are Programmers Responsible For the Actions of Their Clients?

Bobfrankly1 writes "Robert Stuart and his company Extensions Software are being charged by New York authorities, claiming he is promoting gambling in New York because of the actions of his clients. They are charging him after he rejected a plea agreement that would have him plead guilty to lesser charges, adding backdoors to his software, and using said backdoors to gather details on his clients and their customers." Another article on the case at Salon.

Comments

Re:Perhaps

[ArcadeNut]

So by your logic, anyone who writes FTP clients/servers, or Web Browsers, or ANYTHING that could be used for Illegal activity, then they should be held accountable?

No thanks.

If it's only purpose is for illegal activities, then sure, prosecute away...

(IANAL) I have a feeling that if the guy wasn't selling it to anyone in the US or anyone outside the US that was using it for illegal purposes he probably won't wind up in jail. They've (Not necessarily NY) tried to hold other non-software companies liable for the actions of their customers and have failed.

Re:No.

[rtb61]

Gambling is only gambling when the odds are equal for everyone, else it is a scam and those whom the odds favour are lying, cheating and stealing, that's the truth forget the bullshit. Typically the individual has to be charged so that he can be properly investigated to find out how much maintenance he was doing on his code. No one produced perfect code except the most simplest of it, first time around and the environment it which the code operates is itself continually changing, so maintenance is highly likely as is taking a percentage of income for reduced initial payment.

Not to forget asshat many part of Australia were settled by free citizens ie Adelaide was a free settled colony.