Did Marco Rubio's Campaign Violate The CFAA? Will He Commit To Reforming It?
from the broken-law dept
We've talked a lot in the past few years about the desperate need to reform the CFAA -- an absolutely horrible "anti-hacking" law that has been stretched and broadened and twisted by people over the years, such that it's frequently used to "pile on" charges when nothing else will stick. If you want to go into a lot more detail, you can listen to the podcast we recently did about the CFAA, or listen to this wonderful podcast that Reply All did about the CFAA (where I also make a brief appearance). But one of the biggest problems with it is that it considers you to be a dangerous hacker if you access a computer/network "without authorization" or if you merely have "exceeded authorized access." It's that latter phrase that often causes trouble. What does it even mean? Historically, cases have been brought against employees who use their employer's computers for non-work related things, against someone for supposedly failing to abide by MySpace's terms of service and for downloading too many academic journals that were freely available for downloading on MIT's campus network.Keep that in mind as you read this Associated Press story about how Presidential candidate and current Florida Senator Marco Rubio's "low-budget" Presidential campaign office got free internet access for a bit:
At one of the campaign's Nevada offices, staffers tried to do their part to live up to the less is more mantra. After noticing a pizza place next to a campaign office had free wireless internet that required a password, a staffer walked over and bought two pieces of pizza and asked for the internet access code.It's not at all difficult to see how that could be "exceeding authorized access" under the statute. After all, it's pretty clear that the intent of the access is for customers while they're in the restaurant. That seems to be confirmed by the fact that the pizza place asked the Rubio campaign to knock it off once it discovered what was going on. Now, for it to be a felony, there needs to be $5,000 worth of damage -- but considering that in another recent case, the DOJ turned a single news article defacement (that lasted just 40 minutes) into a supposed $929,977 in damages, I'm sure some creative math can make the use of the WiFi into something greater than $5,000. You just need to argue that the congestion on the WiFi likely turned off customers who may not ever come back, and the value of those losses exceeds $5,000.
But the cost-cutting measure was short-lived. After about three weeks, the pizza place caught on and asked the Rubio team to stop.
Now, Rubio hasn't really been involved at all in the debate over the CFAA and reforming it. The only official "policy" line he has even closely related to it on his campaign issues page suggests he'd favor making the CFAA punishments even worse: "Use American power to respond harshly to international cyber attacks on American citizens, businesses, and governments." Of course, that's focused on foreign attacks, so may not apply directly.
Either way, this seems like something an enterprising political reporter might want to ask the Rubio campaign, seeing as they themselves may have potentially committed a felony under the current CFAA.
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Filed Under: access, cfaa, cfaa reform, internet access, marco rubio
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Wonder if they had data caps, which is how they would've found this going on when they got surcharged.
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They only noticed after three weeks?
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Bistromathics strikes!
Bistro Mathematics comes into play, and almost any number, no matter how improbable, can be found.
For example: just imagine the number of customers who will stay away from that pizza place because of its connection to the Rubio campaign? That should total a couple of million people (at $1 per person even!) right there, with the poll numbers as obvious evidence.
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Re: Bistromathics strikes!
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I don't see this holding up
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Re: I don't see this holding up
I bet you are a lot of fun at parties. You probably pass around a hat asking for donations cause the keg is getting low followed by a quick get away. After all, you never actually said you intended to go get another keg did you?
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Re: I don't see this holding up
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Rubio won't do the work to reform CFAA
His campaign pretty much admitted a month ago that Rubio isn't showing up for work as senator because he hates the job.
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Re: Rubio won't do the work to reform CFAA
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Damages seem easy enough
3 weeks X 7 days in a week X 24 hours in a day X 4 quarter hours in an hour – 1 (because they paid for the first quarter hour) is 2015 quarter hours. If two slices is $2.49 or more, it's over $5,000 that they should've been paying to get pizza at a rate of one pizza an hour for three weeks with complementary wifi.
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Re: Damages seem easy enough
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Of course not.
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Re: Of course not.
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No crime here
And I doubt the pizza restaurant will push for charges since they're getting free publicity for giving the campaign free wi-fi... not to mention the customers they'll get when Rubio supporters come to visit.
So, even though the law can be stretched to say there was a crime, it'll be hard to show anyone got hurt.
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How cheap...
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Re: How cheap...
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foundation money
the wrong people: philantropists like Soros & Friends
to do man in the middle attacks to spy and sabotage the presidential campaign or just to document Rubio's dirty deeds for future use...
They could have their own swiss charitable pizza foundation to promote the well being of mankind through the education and research on pizza sciences
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