Yes.. this is somewhat of a slippery slope argument -- however, none of the cases mentioned in the article as "theoretical" are actually theoretical. Spammers have been successfully prosecuted as "trespassers," linking without permission has been held to be a trespass as has viewing both public webpages (in violation of a terms of use) and private webpages (with a user provided userid and password.) Even going beyond the scope of authorization to use a company provided computer (in this case, to view files the employee had authorized access to, but no reason to see) was prosecuted as computer crime. And these are just at the federal level. At the state and local level things are much worse.

[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/183/22118#22118