Prosecutors admit error in McDanel whisteblower conviction

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 14:55:37 -0600 (MDT)
> From: "Kevin L. Poulsen" <klp () securityfocus com>
> Subject: Prosecutors admit error in McDanel whisteblower conviction
> To: dave () farber net
>
>
> Prosecutors admit error in whisteblower conviction
>
> By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Oct 14 2003 1:26PM
>
> Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles will ask a court to set aside the
> conviction of a man who served 16 months in federal prison for blowing the
> whistle on an ex-employer's cybersecurity holes, officials said Tuesday.
>
> http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7202


'); //-->


Prosecutors admit error in whisteblower conviction

By <mailto:klp () securityfocus com>Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Oct 14 2003 
1:26PM
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles will ask a court to set aside the 
conviction of a man who served 16 months in federal prison for blowing the 
whistle on an ex-employer's cybersecurity holes, officials said Tuesday.

Without providing details, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in 
Los Angeles confirmed that the office's appellate division will move this 
week to vacate Bret McDanel's felony conviction.

McDanel, 30, was convicted last year under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 
for sending 5,600 e-mail messages to customers of his former employer, the 
now-defunct e-mail provider Tornado Development, Inc., warning about a 
security hole in Tornado's service that left private messages vulnerable to 
unauthorized access.

After a court trial, federal judge Lourdes Baird found McDanel guilty of 
unauthorized access, accepting prosecutors' arguments that McDanel abused 
Tornado's e-mail servers to send the messages. The judge found that McDanel 
caused the statutorily-required $5,000 in damage in part by bogging down 
those servers, and in part by harming the company's reputation by 
disclosing the bug.

McDanel <http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6643>appealed last August, 
arguing that the judge misconstrued the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

A federal prosecutor said Tuesday that the government was conceding that 
<http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/179>point, and would file a rare 
"Confession of Error" acknowledging that McDanel was convicted through a 
improper reading of the law. "The Confession of Error says we don't believe 
that simply disclosing the fact of the vulnerability itself constitutes 
damage," said the official.

McDanel's appellate attorney, Jennifer Granick at Stanford University's 
Center for Internet and Society, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

A government <http://www.cybercrime.gov/mcdanelSent.htm>press release 
issued at the time of McDanel's sentencing colored him a "computer 
spammer," and touted the case as the first to go to trial in Los Angeles 
under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. McDanel has already served his full 
16-month prison term.

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/