UK Thinking About Protecting Ethical Hackers
from the pointing-out-a-vulnerability-isn't-a-crime dept
There have been plenty of problems with laws that haven't even tried to distinguish between various types of computer break-ins. If someone is just trying to point out a vulnerability, do they deserve the same type of punishment as someone who breaks in, takes data and trashes a system? Some more tech savvy politicians in the UK are even considering protecting so-called "benign" hacking in an update on their computer misuse laws. Of course, the definition of "benign" is going to be problematic. In the article, for example, one politician suggests it should be legal to hack around censorship laws by the government to let users access websites the government has blocked. That seems particularly confusing: the government would allow people to hack around a law they, themselves, had passed?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
