Hacking commercial systems.

Hi,

	A number of people have been proposing hacks on commercial payment 
systems. Could I point out that this is not necessarily a good idea? One vendor 
I spoke to has a contract clause with sublicensees which requires a legal 
response in such situations. His opinion was that attempting such a crack on a 
"live" system consitituted conspiracy to commit fraud and organisation of the 
same could involve RICO penalties.

	It would seem prudent to approach such projects with a little caution. 
If a request were made for a sample of material to work on most companies would 
oblige and a refusal would provide protection against legal tactics. Most 
sensible companies would see the advantage of offering a reward.

		Phill

Phill writes:
> [One vendor's] opinion was that attempting such a crack on a "live" system 
> consitituted conspiracy to commit fraud
[...]
> If a request were made for a sample of material to work on most companies 
> would oblige and a refusal would provide protection against legal tactics. 

Assuming for the sake of argument that the vendor's opinion turns out to be
legally valid (IANAL):

There's something here I don't understand. How would a refusal to provide
a sample for testing/hacking provide protection against possible fraud 
charges for hacking The Real Thing (tm) ?

Maybe that's how the law works (in some jurisdictions), but I don't see a
logical connection. I'm not aware of companies involved in deployed payment
systems throwing samples to the dogs.

-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>