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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!mokry
From: mokry@ctr.columbia.edu (Robert Mokry)
Newsgroups: alt.security,alt.folklore.computers,comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Re: Feedback on Computer Crime - Apology
Message-ID: <1990Aug28.182451.11662@ctr.columbia.edu>
Date: 28 Aug 90 18:24:51 GMT
References: <1990Aug27.194144.10910@cbnewsl.att.com> <1990Aug28.161459.11497@ctr.columbia.edu> <1990Aug28.174333.22132@athena.mit.edu>
Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research
Lines: 31

In article <1990Aug28.174333.22132@athena.mit.edu> jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>In article <1990Aug28.161459.11497@ctr.columbia.edu>, mokry@ctr.columbia.edu (Robert Mokry) writes:
>  Remember "innocent until proven guilty?"  If the defense states that the
>access to the machine was unintentional, and it is necessary for the access to
>have been intentional in order for a crime to have been committed, then it is
>up to the prosecution to prove that the access was intentional.

Simple proof: The prosecutor points to the witness box where a nerdy
boy is sitting and says, "This thing is a hacker, and he has a
computer, and his computer dialed up another computer, and we all know
computers don't make mistakes."

The prosecutor doesn't need to make any strictly logical sense; he or she 
must just convince the judge or jury.

>|> >3)  Connecting to the wrong node was a genuine mistake,
>|> >    which you corrected by typing ^D.
>|> 
>|> What sort of statement is ^D?  Try explaining that to the judge.
>
>  This is a red herring.  If the judge is incapable of understanding the
>relatively simple principles involved ("There is a standard character which is
>used to signal to the other end of a remote connection that you wish to
>disconnect from that connection.  The defendant typed that character as soon
>as he realized that he had connected to the wrong machine, and his connection
>was ended.")

Is it really a standard character?  It may be standard in Unix, but what
about other systems?  Why not use ^C?  What if a login program on a
non-Unix computer gets confused and crashes when it gets ^D, letting the
person on the system?  And what if the person knows that this is the case?