A little late, but I don't recall seeing this ... UK gov sets rules for hacker tool ban

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Randall [rvh40 () insightbb com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 12:59 AM
To: David Farber; Dewayne Hendricks; johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com
Subject: A little late, but I don't recall seeing this ...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/02/hacker_toll_ban_guidance/
(Links@ the site)



UK gov sets rules for hacker tool ban

Consultants in frame? Definitely Maybe

By John Leyden → More by this author
Published Wednesday 2nd January 2008 15:54 GMT
Green Computing - Where do you stand?
The UK government has published guidelines for the application of a
law that makes it illegal to create or distribute so-called "hacking
tools".
The controversial measure is among amendments to the Computer Misuse
Act included in the Police and Justice Act 2006. However, the ban
along with measures to increase the maximum penalty for hacking
offences to ten years and make denial of service offences clearly
illegal, are still not in force and probably won't be until May 2008
in order not to create overlap with the Serious Crime Bill, currently
making its way through the House of Commons.

A revamp of the UK's outdated computer crime laws is long overdue.
However, provisions to ban the development, ownership and
distribution of so-called "hacker tools" draw sharp criticism from
industry. Critics point out that many of these tools are used by
system administrators and security consultants quite legitimately to
probe for vulnerabilities in corporate systems.
The distinctions between, for example, a password cracker and a
password recovery tool, or a utility designed to run denial of
service attacks and one designed to stress-test a network, are
subtle. The problem is that anything from nmap through wireshark to
perl can be used for both legitimate and illicit purposes, in much
the same way that a hammer can be used for putting up shelving or
breaking into a car.
Following industry lobbying the government has come through with
guidelines that address some, but not all, of these concerns about
"dual-use" tools. The guidelines establish that to successfully
prosecute the author of a tool it needs to be shown that they
intended it to be used to commit computer crime. But the Home Office,
despite lobbying, refused to withdraw the distribution offence. This
leaves the door open to prosecute people who distribute a tool, such
as nmap, that's subsequently abused by hackers.
The Crown Prosecution Service guidance, published after a long delay
on Monday, also asks prosecutors to consider if an article is
"available on a wide scale commercial basis and sold through
legitimate channels". Critics argue this test fails to factor in the
widespread use of open source tools or rapid product innovation.
IT and the law are never easy bedfellows. While the guidelines
probably make it less likely the security consultants will be
prosecuted by over-zealous lawyers for actions they don't understand
are legitimate, they are still a bit of a mess.
Richard Clayton, a security researcher at Cambridge University and
long-time contributor to UK security policy working groups, has a
useful analysis of the proposals here. ®

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