(NB: IANAL but I am a licensed investigator working in computer forensics and incident response.)
Galen started a great discussion on a recent killboard security incident. Go read his post and think about it.
I’ll just paraphrase and restate here the core of what I said in the comments on his post:
This isn’t “hacking” or intrusion of any sort. One could alternately view this as a web site that allows posting by the public, and it so happens that the site owners decided (after the fact) that they didn’t like all the content posted by the public. If they haven’t established a password, then they have a hard case to make that authorized access was exceeded or that the section was restricted. In my professional opinion, putting a killboard online with no authentication whatsoever equates to providing a computer service to the public for the purpose of discussion. I cannot imagine any prosecutor choosing to pursue this case in good faith, given the facts as we know them.
Galen provides some excellent food for thought as well, so go join in the discussion. To promote that, I’m closing comments on this post so that we can discuss things more coherently. Feel free to pingback this post with your own if you don’t want to use Intense Debate, as I know some EVE players don’t like it for their own reasons.
Image credit Thomas Hawk via Flickr
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