Underground showdown (Register) [LWN.net]

The Register looks at an interesting phonomenon in the cracker world: web site defacers have are targeting phishing sites. "It's unlikely that many law enforcement officials will go after Web defacers who are posting warnings to potential victims of phishing fraud. Prosecutors can pick and choose the cases in which they want to invest time, and helping out bank fraudsters is not likely a high priority..."

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Underground showdown (Register)

Posted May 27, 2005 17:18 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

> "Prosecutors can pick and choose the cases in
> which they want to invest time, and helping out
> bank fraudsters is not likely a high priority..."

... OR a politically popular one... Imagine the political hay that could
be made out of it if they /did/ go after the cracker for posting a warning
on the phisher's site! I just don't see such a prosecution happening,
unless the crackers get /too/ wild and start taking down other sites with
them, at least anywhere said prosecutors face public elections.

Duncan

Underground showdown (Register)

Posted May 27, 2005 21:18 UTC (Fri) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] (6 responses)

Milage might vary depending upon how ignorant prosecutors are in your patch about the relative demerits of defacement and phishing, but IMHO defacing a phishing site can not be illegal. Doing something which would otherwise be a crime is not a crime when it is the only way to prevent a greater crime from occuring. There are plenty of examples where this principle applies. The fire service are not committing crimes by breaking into a burning building so they can extinguish the flames and rescue trapped people. Breaking into a locked car in the sunshine with an expiring pet inside to prevent cruelty to the pet is also not a crime. Carrying out a citizens arrest of a violent robber is not an assault upon the robber, so long as no more force was used than neccessary to carry out the arrest.

Underground showdown (Register)

Posted May 28, 2005 11:04 UTC (Sat) by fergal (guest, #602) [Link] (1 responses)

There's a great example in John Pilger's book Hidden Agendas. He has a chapter on the women who broke into a British Aerospace hanger and beat the crap out of several multi-million dollar Hawk fighter jets. The same jets had been sold to Indonesia for "training" purposes and then used against civilians, this was the next shipment. The case went to trial and they were found not guilty because they were committing a lesser crime to prevent a much greater one.

It's a great book but I have no idea whether that defence would in this case.

Underground showdown (Register)

Posted May 28, 2005 14:04 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

This is a very good example. I followed news of this at the time. It is also a very good reason why the right to trial by a jury of one's peers has to be defended against clever lawyers who would take this away from us on technical grounds.

Lesser crimes

Posted May 29, 2005 13:09 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (3 responses)

That is a weird principle; it looks rather as a corollary of Lynch law. If I think that stealing horses is a more serious crime than murder, then murdering horse thieves myself would be justified!?

Somehow, I don't see that doctrine of "lesser crime" applying in most of the civilized world. Defacing phishing sites is IMHO still illegal, even if it's morally desirable.

Lesser crimes

Posted May 30, 2005 17:25 UTC (Mon) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] (2 responses)

Sorry, but only a fool, illiterate or bigot would consider any kind of theft worse than murder. I also think you would also have extreme difficulty persuading any likely jury or legislative assembly that this was the case. That doesn't mean all juries when lynching was common in certain backward places (particularly the US south in the first half of the twentieth century) were as literate as they now are, nor that all juries now are as well educated as they ever will be. However, when well-educated juries refuse to convict in particular cases, progressive legislators have to take notice. We can also expect laws concerning computer crimes to follow a patern of growing maturity, as computing and networking issues become better understood by the public at large and elected representatives.

It is the responsibility of those who believe that what would otherwise be a lesser crime is neccessary to prevent a greater crime to educate the jury when and if their case comes to trial. The point I was making is that this principle has been successfully applied in many areas previously - and there is every reason to believe this will happen again in other areas. The chances of a defacer ever coming to trial for defacing a phishing site is pretty minimal anyway, assuming the police put onto this kind of job have the sense not to go after totally the wrong target.

Lesser crimes

Posted May 30, 2005 23:08 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link] (1 responses)

Sorry, but only a fool, illiterate or bigot would consider any kind of theft worse than murder.

Agreed. Unluckily the world is full of fools. Who is to convince them that the "lesser crime" principle does not apply to them?

Furthermore, in a legal environment where file sharing carries a bigger penalty than manslaughter, who sets the scale?

I don't know. Even if in the phishing case the morality is quite clear (you deface a site thus preventing gullible people to lose their life savings), I would not like the idea to become a doctrine.

Just war and authority theory

Posted Jun 2, 2005 9:17 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

Please see the Wikipedia entry on just war theory . The only sense in which defacing a phishing site might not meet these criteria is in that: "war can only be waged under legitimate authority". Of course it would be better to be able to refer a properly constituted law enforcement agency to the phishing site with the authority to close it down and prosecute the perpetrators, but I guess you will appreciate the practical difficulties of communicating across multiple jurisdictions using multiple languages in order to achieve this. Also the defacement is proportionate in these circumstances. The doctrine of just war concerns actions which can result in the death of many people. There is scope for arguing the case about "due authority" when those who should be able to act as due authorities are unresponsive and uncommunicative. The Wikipedia entry on authority is also relevant, in the sense that official authority has to be capable of appropriate action to be generally recognisable as such.