Re: Cyberspace is by nature crime-free

Matthew Gream writes
> I have to disagree with this, especially the title 'is by
> nature'. Cyberspace as a communications forum still
> presents many opportunities for crime as are present in
> physical and related communications media. To rattle a few
> off the top of my head without thinking to broadly:
> 
> - break and enter --> cracking/hacking (whatever you want
>   to call it)
 
Can be limited to acceptable levels by normal precautions.
The owner ultimately has physical control, the cracker does
not.
 
>  - vilification, discrimination
 
Not a crime.
 
>  - sedition
 
Not a crime.
 
>  - inciting violence
 
Not a crime.
 
>  - fraud (as you've mentioned)
 
There is plenty of fraud, but it can be controlled by
common sense and cryptographic precautions.  (Gasp - this
post is actually slightly relevant to the Cyberpunks list.)
 
>  - transfering funds, tax evasion
 
Not a crime.  Neither of these are extraditable offenses.
 
>  - illegal business activity, false advertising
 
Not a crime, except for fraud, discussed above.
 
>  - contempt of court
 
There is plenty of contempt of court.  Courts are coming
to accept the reality that cyberspace is beyond their
power, hence not a crime.  Note that contempt of court has
never been an extraditable offense.
 
>  - copyright infringment
 
There is plenty of copyright infringement, but the old
concept of copyright does not fit well on the net, because
information is separated from its physical embodiment and
is endlessly mutable.
 
The concept of "copyright" has limited usefulness in
cyberspace.  We are returning to the older concepts of
"plagiarism" and "authenticity".  Notice how many people
were reluctant to accept PGP 2.6 until it was blessed by
Zimmerman.
 
> Admittedly by the nature of cyberspace, detecting and
> gaining evidence for these crimes can be more complicated
> than in a tangible physical medium, but none the less these
> actions are still criminal.
 
If a law cannot be enforced, or cannot be enforced except
by grossly violating someone's rights, then it is no law.
 
But cyberspace does make new offenses possible. 
 
The two new offenses of cyberspace are spamming and spoofing.
 
Both of these seem to be controlled at acceptable levels.
 
Spamming is controlled by vengeance campaigns of the
silicon cowboys and the cyber vigilantes.   The green card
lawyers were run off the net. The Armenian genocide guy is
almost within net custom, he pushes the edge but does not
obviously exceed it.
 
Serious spoofing seems rare.  In every spoofing that I have
seen the spoofer has made his true identity fairly obvious,
which is why we call it spoofing, not impersonation.  If
anyone is in real danger of malicious spoofing - for
example David Sternlight - then he should PGP sign all his
messages, thus eliminating the problem.
 
-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our    |
property, because of the kind of animals that we |         James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from |
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.     |         jamesd@netcom.com

"James A. Donald" wrote:

> > - break and enter --> cracking/hacking (whatever you want
> >   to call it)
>  
> Can be limited to acceptable levels by normal precautions.
> The owner ultimately has physical control, the cracker does
> not.

It's still a crime, and still everpresent in cyberspace, and it still
occurs.

> >  - vilification, discrimination
>  
> Not a crime.

Is in Australia, probably in other countries as well. Naturally
there are going to be problems with international aspects of
crime in this respect, jurisdictions and so on, but those are
only technicalities -- the crime can easily occur in a localised
environment.

> >  - sedition
>  
> Not a crime.

as above.

> >  - inciting violence
>
> Not a crime.

as above.

> >  - transfering funds, tax evasion
>  
> Not a crime.  Neither of these are extraditable offenses.

as above (re. tax evasion). Does it matter if it's not extradictable ?
what happens if it occurs locally ? not all crimes require
extradition.

> >  - illegal business activity, false advertising
>  
> Not a crime, except for fraud, discussed above.

False and misleading advertising is a crime in Australia, and granted
it is a form of fraud.

> >  - contempt of court
>  
> There is plenty of contempt of court.  Courts are coming
> to accept the reality that cyberspace is beyond their
> power, hence not a crime.  Note that contempt of court has
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> never been an extraditable offense.

Huh, you're asserting that because it is beyond their control, it isn't
a crime ? Whether or not it's beyond control or not does not disguise
the fact that legally it's still a crime, and the entire fact that it
is totally beyond their control is debatable. Whilst at the moment, it
seems that that is the case, who's to say things aren't going to be
instigated a little further down the track ?

That's a fairly sweeping argument that `courts are _coming to accept_
the reality ...', they've had a hard time dealing with cyberspace --
and going to have much harder times, but I don't think they're going to
just forget cyberspace.

> >  - copyright infringment
>  
> There is plenty of copyright infringement, but the old
> concept of copyright does not fit well on the net, because
> information is separated from its physical embodiment and
> is endlessly mutable.

Yup, the definition of copyright has problems in cyberspace, that is
true, but that doesn't mean it isn't a crime.

> If a law cannot be enforced, or cannot be enforced except
> by grossly violating someone's rights, then it is no law.

I don't agree with this, all these crimes _could_ be enforced to
certain extents -- and regardless of whether they can or not, they are
still crimes, still defined as crimes, and still exist to be used if
the possibility arises.

If I use a pseudonym to run a mailing list for the purpose of
discussing seditious activities and planning such activities,
regardless of how infeasable it is to associate a real name with the
pseudonym or to enforce the law, the activity is still (legally, in
terms of the laws of this nation) a crime.

Matthew.

-- 
Matthew Gream
Consent Technologies
Sydney, (02) 821-2043
M.Gream@uts.edu.au

Matthew Gream writes
> > >  - sedition
  
I wrote:
> > Not a crime.
> 
> Is in Australia, probably in other countries as well. Naturally
> there are going to be problems with international aspects of
> crime in this respect, jurisdictions and so on, but those are
> only technicalities -- the crime can easily occur in a localised
> environment.

Witchcraft is also illegal in Australia.  When was the last 
prosecution for sedition?

During the many decades I lived in Australia there was never
a prosecution for sedition, and there was plenty of sedition.

Has the place turned totalitarian since I left?



-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our    |
property, because of the kind of animals that we |         James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from |
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.     |         jamesd@netcom.com

"James A. Donald" wrote:

> Witchcraft is also illegal in Australia.  When was the last 
> prosecution for sedition?

There are shit laws in many countries, including Australia, but
unfortunately they are still laws and still crimes, ready to be pulled
out and (unfortunately) used. The point is that whether or not it's a
`dead letter' law (as David McKnight puts it), it still exists and
still can be used and (in the eyes of the law, but not necessary in the
eyes of the majority) still a crime.

> During the many decades I lived in Australia there was never
> a prosecution for sedition, and there was plenty of sedition.

There is one that I can remember, documented in David McKnight's recent
book on ASIO and it's operation as a political tool against the left
during the 50s and 60s. A leading CPA figure was successfully
prosecuted in Brisbane for calls to citizens to not assist the country
in the next war (something or other, I don't have the book with me).

This only seems to prove my point that a seemingly useless crime is
still there ready be used as a tool of state suppression.

> Has the place turned totalitarian since I left?

Not yet.


Matthew.

-- 
Matthew Gream
Consent Technologies
Sydney, (02) 821-2043
M.Gream@uts.edu.au

> 
> Matthew Gream writes
> > > >  - sedition
>   
> I wrote:
> > > Not a crime.
> > 
> > Is in Australia, probably in other countries as well. Naturally
> > there are going to be problems with international aspects of
> > crime in this respect, jurisdictions and so on, but those are
> > only technicalities -- the crime can easily occur in a localised
> > environment.
> 
> Witchcraft is also illegal in Australia.  When was the last 
> prosecution for sedition?
> 
> During the many decades I lived in Australia there was never
> a prosecution for sedition, and there was plenty of sedition.
> 
> Has the place turned totalitarian since I left?
> 

Not really. No more so than other countries (like the U.S and Canada),
and a lot less than other countries (like Singapore). On the negative
side, the absence of a constitutional equivalent to the First amend-
ment does mean that speech is slightly more limited here, but not much.
One example is that the magazine "Who Weekly" was ordered to stop
distributing one of it's issues, as it identified on the front cover (with
photo attached) a person charged with murdering several backpackers. 
One other cloud on the horizon is that the Keating government may make
race-hate speech illegal. I doubt it will be tabled in anything other than
an emasculated format, and will be shredded to pieces in the Senate. It's
still a dubious precedent. :-<

However, there are a few positive aspects. The religious right are not as
numerous, and do not have as much political power. Our most notable 
fundamentalist, Reverend Fred Nile, is in the legislative council of N.S.W.,
but he is widely regarded as a loonie. Homosexuality is legal in every
state except Tasmania, and that will change soon :-) (although I do think
that the tactic of appealing to the UN Human Rights Commision to achieve this
is slightly shoddy.) We also permit hypodermic needle exchanges, and that
keeps the AIDS rate down. In short, in some ways we are as liber[al/tarian]
as the U.S., in other ways we aren't.

Unfortunately, legislation is always reformed on a piece meal basic. This
means that there is always a lot of miscellaneous obsolete legislation that 
no-one ever gets around to removing until something stupid happens as a result.
For example, one Tarot card reader in Ipswich (a satellite city of Brisbane)
did get charged with witchcraft by some undercover police. I think (and a
lot of other people would agree here) that this was a waste of police resources
that would be better served fighting real crime (i.e., murder, rape, theft,
etc.). I just hope the case gets thrown out of court.

	Alas, this ain't cryptography.

> 
> 
> -- 
>  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our    |
> property, because of the kind of animals that we |         James A. Donald
> are.  True law derives from this right, not from |
> the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.     |         jamesd@netcom.com
> 

=======================================================
| Peter Murphy. <pkm@maths.uq.oz.au>.  Department of  |
| Mathematics - University of Queensland, Australia.  |
-------------------------------------------------------
| "What will you do? What will you do? When a hundred |
| thousand Morriseys come rushing over the hill?"     |
|                                       - Mr. Floppy. |
=======================================================