Re: Bernstein ruling meets the virus law

At  2:43 PM 4/22/96 -0700, Steve Reid wrote:
>Things are only black and white in lawmaker's dreams. :-/

Note also that there are programs which replicate and maintain themselves
on several machines in a network in order to provide reliable network
services (e.g. print spooling).  (The people at Xerox PARC, who did almost
everything first, experimented with this kind of program.)

If lawmakers are to come up with a rational law, a big if, they will have
to differentiate between a bug in a "tame" worm which lets it get loose as
a virus, and a virus which was meant to be destructive from the get go. 
And then they will have to decide what to do about the virus that was
designed to write, "Hi Mom!" on as many screens as possible with no
malicious damage, and bugs in it.


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Bill Frantz       | The CDA means  | Periwinkle  --  Computer Consulting
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Bill Frantz sez:
+ 
+ If lawmakers are to come up with a rational law, a big if, they will have
+ to differentiate between a bug in a "tame" worm which lets it get loose as
+ a virus, and a virus which was meant to be destructive from the get go. 
+ And then they will have to decide what to do about the virus that was
+ designed to write, "Hi Mom!" on as many screens as possible with no
+ malicious damage, and bugs in it.

18 USC 1030(a)(5) makes such a distinction, treating intentional harm
more severely than releasing a virus "with reckless disregard of a
substantial and unjustifiable risk" of harm.  The latter is only a
misdemeanor; the former, a felony.

The statute didn't always make this distinction.  In fact, it was the
RTM case -- brought under the former felony-only version of the
statute -- that inspired the 1994 amendment dividing the offense into
two separate offenses.

-- 
	Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schreiben.

                      Mark Eckenwiler   eck@panix.com