Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ingr!b11!craig
From: craig@b11.ingr.com (Craig Presson)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: "The Scene of the Crime"
Message-ID: <8929@b11.ingr.com>
Date: 4 Oct 90 14:34:02 GMT
References: <3398@mindlink.UUCP> <1990Oct3.230442.21336@lavaca.uh.edu>
Sender: usenet@b11.ingr.com
Reply-To: craig@b11.ingr.com (Craig Presson)
Organization: System Management Tools
Lines: 49


In article <1990Oct3.230442.21336@lavaca.uh.edu>, jet@karazm.math.uh.edu
(J. Eric Townsend) writes:
|> In article <3398@mindlink.UUCP> a577@mindlink.UUCP (Curt Sampson) writes:
|> >Does anybody know how computer crime across international boundaries
is going
|> >to be dealt with?  With the current telecommunications system, it's become
|> >obvious that you could be halfway across the world from the "scene of the
|> >crime."
|> 
|> I would assume this is dealt with in extradtion (sic) treaties.  The
|> Nova special mentioned that the German crackers had to be tried in
|> Germany.  Now that I think about it, that might have been because they
|> really didn't do too much here (proveable in court) that they could be
|> charged with.
|> (ie: breaking into a university computer and not damaging anything.)
|> --
|> J. Eric Townsend     Internet: jet@uh.edu    Bitnet: jet@UHOU
|> Systems Manager - University of Houston Dept. of Mathematics - (713)
749-2120
|>                    "It's not the bullet that kills you, it's the hole."
|> Skate UNIX(r)                      -- Laurie Anderson

1) The German authorities chose not to allow extradition, probably the 
applicability of extradition treaties to the new area of law was unclear.
In general, the alleged acts have to be illegal in both countries and
covered by an extradition treaty.

2) Markus Hess & co. were using a node at Mitre in Reston VA to connect to
Lawrence Berkeley Lab (NOT UCB) and thence to various .mil sites. However,
they sold their gleanings to the KGB in Hannover, so you could say the 
most serious crime was committed there. That's a bit more than "cruising"
a University computer without permission AND WHO SAID DOING THAT WAS OK
ANYWAY?

3) I don't think there is the same expectation of privacy on a publicly
funded computer as there is on a corporation's or private individual's 
systems. Topic to revive on misc.legal, if someone wants.

4) The previous poster misinterpreted the reference to the need for a
Virginia search warrant. The operator in Va. DID the trace but did not
release the results, pending a court order valid in Va. Stoll was
frustrated by this, understandably, but nothing implied he thought it
was a "crime".

5) Stoll "liberated" printers and PCs on a Friday afternoon and returned
them Saturday morning. After that he got more formal about his scrounging.
In some organizations this would get you fired and in others it would
make you a quasi-hero. In any case it was internal to LBL.