Re: Guess what happened!!!

Subject: Re: Guess what happened!!!
From: slo@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Steve Loughran)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 11:23:44 GMT
Apparently-To: merlyn@teleport.com
From merlyn@teleport.com Mon Aug 15 13: 48:00 1994
Newsgroups: alt.security.pgp
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, England
References: <Pine.3.89.9408101241.A28130-0100000@vulcan.nexor.co.uk> <MERLYN.94Aug12131719@linda.teleport.com> <776933405snz@avondale.demon.co.uk>
Sender: news@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Usenet News Administrator)

John F Hall (jfhall@avondale.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> In article <MERLYN.94Aug12131719@linda.teleport.com>
>            merlyn@stonehenge.com "Randal L. Schwartz" writes:


> Poor comfort, perhaps, but the equivalent UK law, the Computer Misuse Act
> 1990, says:

> "3 (1)  A person is guilty of an offence if -

>   (a)  he does any act which causes an unauthorised modification of the
>   contents of any computer;  and

>   (b)  at the time when he does the act he has the requisite intent and the
>   requisite knowledge.

> [more legal speak omitted]

>  The most important point seems to
> be that the modification must be an impairment of some kind.

Interesting. It almost reads like if I distributed a program which
knowingly had a bug in it which would impair the operation of the
computer, then I could be committing a crime. If this is so, then
every MS windows program which has shipped with an intermittent bug
-known at the time of product release- which can crash windoze [as most
pointer bugs ultimately do] is breaking the law too... 

        -Steve

PS: Would "Windows is an impairment of some kind" be an adequate defence?

References:

Re: Guess what happened!!!

From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz)

Re: Guess what happened!!!

From: jfhall@avondale.demon.co.uk (John F Hall)