Bernstein ruling meets the virus law

[Rich Burroughs]

At 03:28 PM 4/22/96 -0400, Mark Aldrich <maldrich at grctechs.va.grci.com> wrote:
[snip]
>While I understand that "intent" is something with which lawyers have to 
>contend when they defend or prosecute a case, I don't think that the 
>notion of intent to commit harm extrapolates correctly into the field of 
>virus writing. 

Intent may not even be a necessary part of a "computer crime" case.  Here in
Oregon, Randal Schwartz's case was the first test (I believe) of the state's
vague computer crime law.  Proving that Randal had malicious intent wasn't
part of the prosecution's case, AFAIK -- only that he had altered data
"without authorization."

Given that viewpoint, I can easily picture a virus author getting busted
here even if they didn't have intent to commit harm.  The O'Reilly book
_Computer Crime_ (by Icove, Seger & VonStorch) has a discussion of US
federal law in these areas and the state computer crime laws.


Rich

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