[Gllug] Uh oh, govt attempting to regulate "hacking"

[Aaron Trevena]

On 07/03/06, Adrian McMenamin <adrian at mcmen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-03-07 at 17:14 +0000, Richard Jones wrote:
> > While I think that we desperately need measures to imprison spammers,
> > bot-net owners, phishers, online fraudsters and so on, I don't have
> > much confidence in the tech ignoramuses in our government to legislate
> > usefully.  Well, they're up to it anyway:
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4781608.stm
> >
> > Here are the relevant clauses:
> >
> > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/119/06119.27-33.html#j381
> >
> > Clause 35 appears to make distribution of hacking tools illegal (nmap,
> > anyone?)
>
>
> Not to me. It seems to make it illegal to put nmap on your website and
> say "use this to crack someone's security".
>
> I think there are some flaws in the Computer Misuse Act but I think this
> provision - which makes the distribution of rootkits illegal - is not
> one of them

Right - I'd rather be able to find out about rootkits in the wild and
be able to analyse them or read other peoples analysis of them and so
be able to take action - rather than leave them exclusively in the
hands of black hats.

Making distribution of rootkits illegal is a dumb idea, proof of
concepts are released for the security community to strengthen
security - brushing it all under the carpet by making that illegal is
a crazy idea, that merely makes those with clue as vulnerable as the
clueless.

A.
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