Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!bert.llnl.gov!howell
From: howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Busted for "possession"
Message-ID: <1990Sep17.105918@bert.llnl.gov>
Date: 17 Sep 90 17:59:18 GMT
References: <16013@s.ms.uky.edu> <4628@graphite18.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 25

In the discussion of the Rose case, several people have glibly tossed
off the phrase "possession of proprietary source code" in contexts that
make it sound like a terrible crime.  Just out of curiousity, what law
is actually being broken here?  Is it some perversion of copyright law,
an implied contract, or what?

I can see nailing someone to the wall if they try to take any kind of
economic advantage of proprietary information.  What is there about
mere possession, however, to make it worth prosecuting?  Wouldn't it
be better if these cases were handled through civil law at the expense
of the company which had been wronged?  The company would then presumably
have an economic interest in only persuing those cases where actual
loss of revenue was at stake.  Government prosecuters, on the other hand,
may only be motivated by the desire to convict at any cost.  I realize
that an organization like ATT might still pursue a case just to "put the
fear of God into the hackers", but this might still be a step in the
right direction.

--
Louis Howell

  "A few sums!" retorted Martens, with a trace of his old spirit.  "A major
navigational change, like the one needed to break us away from the comet
and put us on an orbit to Earth, involves about a hundred thousand separate
calculations.  Even the computer needs several minutes for the job."