Another Fine Mess

Another Day. Another Home Office Bill. Another example of badly drafted legislation:

The New Police and Justice Bill includes this gem of an amendment to Computer Misuse Act, which is intended to criminalise the development, distribution or possession of ‘hacker tools’:

3A

Making, supplying or obtaining articles for use in offence under section 1 or 3

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article—

(a) knowing that it is designed or adapted for use in the course of or in connection with an offence under section 1 or 3; or

(b) intending it to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3.

(2) A person is guilty of an offence if he obtains any article with a view to its being supplied for use to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3.

(3) In this section “article

4 thoughts on “Another Fine Mess

  1. Is there a word that means clueless multiplied several millions times? It makes one wonder how sysadmins are supposed to do their job now. It also makes one wonder if the government bothered talking to anyone in the security industry. Still, the aforementioned redundant people will get a chance to communicate with the government when they sign on to the dole.

    Anyone for starting up a “new” Labour party that has a clue and doesn’t change its spots every day?

  2. No of course Sony’s rootkit will not fall foul of the implementation of this forthcoming law. They are a big corporation, and therefore deserving of protection against the masses.

    Instead, this law is intended to further criminalise the ordinary citizen, by providing further opportunities for arbitrary and previously unjustified arrest and imprisonment by an unaccountable national police force.

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