North Carolina bans spam

Wansu writes "The North Carolina Senate just ratified a bill outlawing "computer trespass" and transmission of unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail with forged routing information. The law goes into effect December 1, 1999. You can view the bill at the North Carolina General Assembly web site: " What seems much nicer to me would be an institutionalize of spam-even if they just put "Advertisement: Bleah" in the subject line, I'd proc...er...be happy.

Comments

It makes DoS, piracy, and maybe Win98 illegal too

[Baz Quux]

Look at the bill. Scroll down. Scroll down some more. Stop.

14-458. Computer trespass; penalty.

Read that bit.

"It shall be unlawful for any person to use a computer or computer network without authority [to] temporarily or permanently remove, halt, or otherwise disable any computer data, computer programs, or computer software from a computer or computer network... cause a computer to malfunction, regardless of how long the malfunction persists... alter or erase any computer data... Make an unauthorized copy [of] any printed or electronic form of computer data"

I think this section is far more powerful than the anti-spam bit. Not only can that stuff get you fired, kicked out of school, or your ISP account cancelled, but as of 12/1/99 you can get prosecuted and fined, too. Were it not for the "without authority" clause, installing Windows 98 over a LAN could be classified as criminal. Even so...