Slashdot Mirror
EU Countries Closer To Mandatory Minimum Sentence Cap For Hacking
angry tapir writes "Hackers would face up to two years or more in prison no matter where they live in the European Union under a new draft law approved by the European Parliament's civil liberties committee. The proposed rule would prevent E.U. countries from capping sentences for any type of hacking at less than two years. Meanwhile the maximum sentence possible for cyberattacks against 'critical infrastructure,' such as power plants, transport networks and government networks would be at least five years in jail. The draft directive, which updates rules that have been in place since 2005, would also introduce a maximum penalty of at least three years' imprisonment for creating botnets."
When we talk about debt its every country for himself. When we talk about corruption and murder is every country for himself. Talk about hacking ... OMG now we are a union of countries?
Unless it is done by governments or influential companies, I suppose. On the other hand, no exceptions will be made for investigating journalists.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Some people suggest a breach of TOS is "hacking", like not using your real name of whatever. Or using wget to download a bunch of articles.
This is insane, we're all computer users nowadays.
I'd be much more delighted if this was about a MAXIMUM sentence cap!
The Compuworld article uses the term without revealing it's definition as stated in the EU draft law. Is this because it's loosely defined by the EU itself to act as a catch-all act in the future? That idea chills my bones.
How about all EU countries share the minimum wage, minimum pension and so on? It's a joke that some EU countries have minimum wage of 280~~ euros when cost of living is not that far off from other countries where minimum wage is around 1000 euros. Just look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_minimum_wage, what a joke.
The problem is we don't invest in securing the infrastructure and and expect technology to lower costs. At the same time these systems are vulnerable to 'hackers' they are vulnerable to attack by foreign states. It's stupid to arrest people who had they been operating from another part of the world would not have been arrested or otherwise gotten off nearly scott free. It's better that you use them to help fix your own infrastructure to the attacks can't be easily repeated.
Why, because of clickbait lie? Read the damn story.
Minimum sentence can be a fine, or nothing. But maximum sentence cannot be less then two years for hacking, and five years for hacking of critical infrastructure. Not to mention that European Parliament is a democratically elected legislative branch of EU, directly elected by member states' citizens. It's the most and arguably only democratic branch of EU.
That's a sentencing floor, not a sentencing cap. A cap would limit the maximum sentencing possible.
No, we didn't know. Originally we signed up to EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement), which morphed into the EEC (European Economic Community), then into the EC (European Community) in 1993, and in 2009 into the EU (as a political entity) officially (with the Lisbon Treaty).
That is the main beef in the UK. The original referendum only asked if they wanted to join EFTA, and free trade with Europe was a good idea. Since then everything else was essentially scope creep, until we ended up with the monstrosity that is the EU.
Nobody in my generation (or indeed my parents generation) actually had a say in any of this. Nobody gave us a referendum on any of the new treaties, or for whether we wanted further integration.
I guess that is why a lot of people in the EU (not just the UK) see the EU as undemocratic. Even the EU leaders are aware of this, as they keep mentioning the issue of "EU legitimacy" or "democratic deficit".
So they are aware of the shortcomings. Of course, their solution is more EU, with the goal of total political union, and I presume representative democracy via voting in your chosen MEP.
Of course, we'll have no say in any of this until it is presented to us as a done deal, at which point we can vote for MEPs (the UK may not have this fate, as its population has been clamoring for a referendum for ages, and all this assumes the EU doesn't collapse).
Why, because of clickbait lie? Read the damn story.
To be fair, the summary *doesn't* actually lie.
Even without having checked the comments, it's undeniably obvious that many Slashdotters would skim the summary, see the "two year" figure with respect to "hacking" and "sentences" and jump to the wrong conclusion. And my suspicion is that the editors knew this very well, so yeah, it's probably "clickbait" in that sense.
But if you're paying attention to what the summary actually says, it never claims that there's a minimum two year sentence for "hacking"; it says that there's a minimum limit on the maximum sentence.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Defacing a website: 2 years in prison
Defacing a building: kids will be kids
That's an extremely informative statement.
http://xkcd.com/870/
Wait what?
The reason you don't get much say in it is because most of your voters are too fucking dumb/lazy to actually produce an informed opinion on the subject. All they see is oh no, we lost some of our sovereignty, we're less British now. You just know that whenever the subject of EU comes up, right wing fanatics are going to jump on it and declare it a war on eggs & bacon, pubs and football, because national pride buys votes. So moderate politicians keep everything they can out of the referendums, because they know a bunch of hacks are going to screw it all up, for no other reason than personal gain - hey look at me, I oppose this, vote for me so I can continue my fat cat lifestyle.
Wow, what a bitter tirade! In one fell swoop you've shown exactly the problem with the EU and its supporters. You don't want democracy, you don't want people to choose, you want to decide what is good for them, and if they resist, or don't like it, then they are stupid/lazy/far-right-nuts. Democracy means giving people the right to choose, and includes letting them choose the "wrong" option.
You'll be winning hearts and minds with that attitude, I'll tell you.
And if you want to see a fat-cat lifestyle, try and peer into the live of an European Commissioner. At least the non-governmental fat cats got hold of the money themselves, rather than using my tax money to fund their lifestyles.
There is no rational discussion of "will this be good for us and the people around us", it's all just "what do I get?". If you started asking questions like "how can we make this work, so that in 50 years the bombs don't start flying again"
Why on earth would bombs start flying again? Even if the EU was dissolved tomorrow, I don't see why suddenly war would break out. I mean, people have been living together for a while now in peace, intermarriages, etc... Shengen and free trade did more to build peace than any other part of the EU.
I'd argue that war is more likely if the EU is being kept together by force. Forcing things together will work for a while, but increases the chance that when it does collapse, it will do so in a very bloody way.
They're doing pretty much the same thing in Denmark, arguing tooth and nail that this or that issue does not warrant asking the people, for the very reasons I stated above. They're not going to come out and say it, but you don't need many brain cells to figure it out. Especially not if you've been around for the last couple of referendums on EU, and seen the sheer idiocy of propaganda shoveled onto voters.
Again, politicians showing complete disregard for democracy. "The masses aren't voting for my ideas, they must be stupid/brainwashed/fascists, therefore I must not ask them". That will do nothing but breed resentment, regardless of whether what the politicians are doing is better for them in the long term.
Read the topic. It clearly states "minimum sentence cap" instead of "minimum length of maximum sentence"
So it's a minimum maximum sentence?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
If only term "hacking" wouldn't be so easy to interpret however you want to. Oh you mistyped your username and our system crashed - haxor! Oh, you discovered a vulnerability in our system, even though you didnt take advantage of it - haxor! Oh your grandmom axidentally connected to neighbours open wifi - haxor! To the prison with the lot of you!