Friday 13 March 2009

>Click breaks the law

A report due to be broadcast on the BBC News channel will demonstrate journalists breaking the law.


The BBC News programme Click, which is "The BBC's Flagship technology programme" really should know better. In order to expose the risk of cyber crime, Click managed to acquire its own low-value botnet after visiting chatrooms on the internet.

Click claim that "If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law."

However this is not just misleading it is wrong.The computer miuse act section 1, clearly states it is an offence of
Unauthorised access to computer material
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—
(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;
(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and
(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.


  • They accessed programs running on the computers - they must have been to create or use the Botnet
  • The access was unauthorised
  • They knew it

That by the definition of the Computer misuse act is an offence regardless of intent. It take a lot to make me cross. This has made me cross. Very cross.Link

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