Comments | kirinn: Newsflash: legislative moronitude not limited to US.

kirinn

Newsflash: legislative moronitude not limited to US.

Aug 11, 2007 15:20

Apparently, Germany has recently outlawed the posession of "hacker tools". I haven't seen the actual law text (and don't read enough German for it to do me any good), but according to the report, the law really does just say that, with no significant further clarification. To belabor the obvious, I can immediately think of two separate reasons ( Read more... )

politics, dumbness

Comments 5

donaithnen August 11 2007, 19:34:55 UTC

Not _impossible_. You'd just have to impound every PC in the country :) (and any other devices on which you can code.)

kirinn August 11 2007, 20:40:53 UTC

Earlier post notwithstanding, this is one of those situations where impossible obviously means 99.9999% impractical. :P

marphod August 12 2007, 01:41:01 UTC

Well, owning lockpicking tools is illegal in a lot of areas. actual lockpicks are outlawed, but if you use a screwdriver or coat hanger to open someones door illegally, those are also considered lockpicking tools.

Its more of an added low-grade offense to give prosecutors more options.

kirinn August 12 2007, 20:54:35 UTC

Lockpicking tools I think are still slightly more specific. People can at least mostly agree on the definition of "picking a lock", which is more than you can say for "hacking". But I'm not a big fan of those laws either. I'd much rather the presence of lock-picking tools simply be used when appropriate to help convince a jury that illegal entry was occurring, rather than being a separable crime.

david_f_smith August 13 2007, 02:56:07 UTC

The definition of lockpicking implements has probably also been narrowed down, whether by statute or interpretation, to implements that are useful for cracking a lock and nothing else. Since you could, after all, interpret "tools used for illegal entry" to cover a hammer and chisel, among other things. So the statutes in question wind up being a bit less retarded.

I mean, if someone wants to do the legwork and narrow down their statute to ban, I dunno, blog-hacking scripts or similar crapola, that sounds fine to me. (The thought would be nice, even though I doubt they'd catch anybody.) But it's probably a bit much to hope for.

DFS.