New Hacker Law will allow police to look into your hard drive without court order

[hershie]

New Hacker Law will allow police to look into your hard drive without court order

By Steven Musil
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
November 15, 2002, 10:29 AM PT


Hackings, viruses and unwanted intrusions into your PC are illegal, right? Well, yes--and no.
A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security would punish malicious hackers with life in prison. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the bill, which would reshape large portions of the federal bureaucracy into a new department. Inserted into the Homeland Security bill, the 16-page Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) expands the ability of police to conduct Internet or telephone eavesdropping without first obtaining a court order, and offers Internet providers more latitude to disclose information to police.

Citing privacy concerns, civil liberties groups objected to portions of CSEA. "There are a lot of different things to be concerned about, but preserving Fourth Amendment and wiretap standards continues to be a critical test of Congress' commitment of civil liberties," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.



Speaking of the Fourth Amendment, a federal judge has ruled that law enforcement officials went too far when they tried to use evidence gathered by a known hacker to convict someone of possessing child pornography. The decision is believed to be the first to say that hacking into an Internet-connected home PC without a warrant violates the amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The decision came out of a case in which a hacker uploaded a file to a child porn newsgroup that made it possible to track who downloaded files from the service. The uploaded file contained the SubSeven virus, which the hacker used to remotely search people's computers for porn.

On the other side of the spectrum is an electronic greeting card that has all the hallmarks of a mass-mailing computer virus. The FriendGreetings e-mail misleads a victim into downloading an application--ostensibly to view a Web card--and then sends itself to every e-mail address in the victim's Outlook contacts file. A few systems administrators already blame the mass-mailing e-card for swamping their network.

Yet it will be hard to prosecute the company that created the card: The viral card is protected by a license agreement that tricks unsuspecting users into clicking "Yes" and consenting to have the program send itself to all their e-mail contacts. Without the license agreement, the program would be considered a virus, but with the code wrapped in what could be a prosecution-proof vest.

http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1083-...&subj=cnetnews