Break the Forum Rules? You're Now a Felon...

Post by **Richard S.** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 8:06 pm

Joking of course but this just came to my attention. I'm sure you have all heard of the woman convicted in the case of the girl who commited suicide and rightfully so. What I wasn't aware of is what laws were used to convict her.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10110069-46.html
Web site terms of service, which end users universally ignore, suddenly have teeth: violating them is a federal hacking offense, punishable with jail time. The days of being able to freely lie on the Web could be coming to an end. This could mean serious trouble for people who lie about their age, weight, or marital status in their online dating profiles.

The specifics of the Lori Drew case are messy and emotional. The important fact is that there is no federal cyberbullying statute, so the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles turned to a novel interpretation of existing computer hacking laws to try to punish the woman. The general idea is that in creating terms of service, a Web site owner specifies the rules of admission to the site. If someone violates any of those contractual terms, the "access" to the Web site is done without authorization, and is thus hacking.

On one hand I can agree with this somewhat specifically for the type of case in the article, spammers, people that are trying to be nuisance etc. For example one thing that I see that frequently comes up is where a memeber of forum was banned and they just keep creating new accounts to be a PITA. On the other hand if it was strictly enforced.....

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 8:29 pm

Richard S. wrote:Joking of course but this just came to my attention. I'm sure you have all heard of the woman convicted in the case of the girl who commited suicide and rightfully so. What I wasn't aware of is what laws were used to convict her.

I don't get it Richard?? What did I lie about??

Post by **Richard S.** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 8:45 pm

I wasn't implying that you lied about anything. Did you read the article?

It has to do with the implications of how she was prosecuted. She was prosecuted for breaking the terms of service one of which must have been that you could not falsify information in your profile. For example, I have this rule:

Attempting to circumvent the word censor by using symbols or by any other means is not allowed.

What the article is suggesting is if you break that rule here it can be said you are a hacker which has some pretty severe penalties. Following me?

SuperBeetle · Post by **SuperBeetle** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 8:48 pm

Guess I'm a hacker then

Post by **Richard S.** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 8:55 pm

SuperBeetle wrote:Guess I'm a hacker then

That's pretty much my point, taken at face value something like this can have some pretty severe consequences for those using services like the one I'm providing and that's not a good thing. I'd certainly like to see the "Terms of Service" have some teeth under the law for nuisance people that are causing problems. When I say that I'm referring to people that are just trying to cause problems... and no I don't mean Devil.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:05 pm

Sorry Richard.....I still don't get how I'm a "felon" ???

(I'm very tired tonight & the few brain cells that are still firing are doing so very slowly tonight!)

Post by **Richard S.** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:14 pm

I'm trying to put a little humor into this subject, If you don't like the title I'll change it... The article is suggesting that if you break the "Terms of Service" you can be prosecuted as a hacker which to my understanding is a felony. At face value we could all be labeled "Hackers" which is the point I'm trying to make. Although the conviction of this woman should be applauded the law used to convict her can have many other implications on sites like this one for the user. There's too much to interpret here and could be to the detriment of the people posting on sites like this.

stockingfull · Post by **stockingfull** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:19 pm

Looks like a lot of us are f@#&ing hackers, right??

As the saying goes, "tough cases make bad law." What that means is that, when something really bad happens (like somebody commits suicide due to a course of direct and personal internet provocation), and nobody's already thought of and passed a law to address the conduct which everybody knows caused the injury, it's nearly always a mistake, legally speaking, to try to stretch some other statute just to get the result you want.

That's because the precedent which that distortion of the law sets will, in turn, breed a class of unwanted cases, which never would have been brought but for the first extraordinary situation -- and, in this instance, which raise pretty serious 1st Amendment questions that undoubtedly weren't in the minds of the lawmakers who originally passed the statute being stretched to fit the suicide situation. Instead, what you do is pass "Lori's Law," or some such, to forewarn people not to behave like that in the future.

The law breaks down when it becomes unpredictable. People don't know how to behave if they don't know what the consequences will be. And judges don't know how to decide. No matter what the context, making rules up to fit past conduct as you go along may seem convenient, but it's a bad idea. In fact, Art. I, sec. 9 of the Constitution prohibits the passage of ex post facto laws.

Devil505 · Post by **Devil505** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:21 pm

Richard S. wrote:I'm trying to put a little humor into this subject, If you don't like the title I'll change it...

I was not offended or angered in any way Richard.....I just wasn't understanding where I fit into the picture. I just skimmed the article but if the point is to try to get people to be honest online, they have a better chance of bringing back Prohibition!.....Just is never gonna happen.

Post by **Richard S.** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:31 pm

Devil, you have to get by the honesty and lying part as that is only a small part of it and only specific to this case. It's the potentila for other cases that might be brought using the same law as enforcement. For example I'm going to be adding a no animated rules when I get the chance, if you upload a animated avatar you'll be breaking the terms of service. Are you hacker? No...

bksaun · Post by **bksaun** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:39 pm

See, he IS being a problem!

PITA.

BK

CoalHeat · Post by **CoalHeat** » Mon. Dec. 01, 2008 9:50 pm

Oh Sh#t, I'm in trouble now....

BearKnot · Post by **BearKnot** » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 7:34 pm

stockingfull wrote: "... That's because the precedent which that distortion of the law sets will, in turn, breed a class of unwanted cases, which never would have been brought but for the first extraordinary situation -- and, in this instance, which raise pretty serious 1st Amendment questions that undoubtedly weren't in the minds of the lawmakers who originally passed the statute being stretched to fit the suicide situation. Instead, what you do is pass "Lori's Law," or some such, to forewarn people not to behave like that in the future.

The law breaks down when it becomes unpredictable. People don't know how to behave if they don't know what the consequences will be. And judges don't know how to decide. No matter what the context, making rules up to fit past conduct as you go along may seem convenient, but it's a bad idea. In fact, Art. I, sec. 9 of the Constitution prohibits the passage of ex post facto laws.

Point taken in civilian life, but a law being unpredictable is used to superiors advantage in the military.

That is the reason why the military requires recruits to sign away their Constitutional rights & then sign the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), in which there is the infamous catch all clause “conduct unbecoming a __________ .

Such a law is like the sword of Damocles hanging over a person until the day discharged, because they can be prosecuted at the whim of superior(s). Saw one case & heard of several others when I was in the service.

TimV · Post by **TimV** » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 8:31 pm

Just go to a program called "Paltalk" Now there you find whole groups of people that have so little of a life they believe that the Paltalk World they are in is 100% factual and totally real and find nothing wrong with being on it 24/7 and for many its the only interaction they get with the outside world....sick ....
As for Bull_hit some idot placed about someone on the internet ...I fail to see how anyone that had at least half a marble rolling around in their head would give a damn one way or another what crap some no mind would say or print about them . And now to convict a person over a violation of a "term of service" Just PROVES ALL LAWYERS ARE MORONS AND SCUM OF THE EARTH .they only try to promote their nowhere carrers with sensationalism and they don't care how they do it.

Post by **Richard S.** » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 10:51 pm

TimV wrote:Just PROVES ALL LAWYERS ARE MORONS AND SCUM OF THE EARTH .

Please Keep the generalized personal comments to yourself. So you are aware aware but Stockingfull is a lawyer, or at least he claims to be and not that I have any reason to doubt it. In any event your assertion is already proven false as his post above clearly indicates he does not agree with this at least in the way the law was used. If you want to start a new "bash the lawyers" thread go right ahead but keep this on topic. There's already at least one floating around somewhere.

stockingfull wrote:and nobody's already thought of and passed a law to address the conduct which everybody knows caused the injury

Actually there appears to be something else that could have been used:

http://news.cnet.com/Create-an-e-annoyance,-go-to ... 22491.html
Create an e-annoyance, go to jail

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."
It's illegal to annoy

A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language.

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bit called "Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephone harassment law to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy."