Comment by ajross
6 years ago
> Droogie hasn't done anything wrong
That's arguable, actually. The article states, but doesn't provide evidence, that Droogie "hoped it might confuse automatic license plate readers or the DMV's ticketing system".
If this was done in an attempt to evade enforcement of existing laws, then sorry: that's a crime, folks. You aren't allowed to pen test live systems!
Is the punishment for that crime loads of unrelated parking tickets?
That's a weird legal system going on over there.
Fair, it could be argued. As you said in a deeper comment though, it would take an enterprising prosecutor (though they're hardly scarce) .
Within reason though, he hasn't technically done anything to warrant tickets.
Why would that be a crime? Intent is irrelevant. The crime is that the DMV is running shit code that is wrongly accusing people of crimes.
Intent is absolutely relevant in criminal law. The phrase "with the intent of" or "for the purposes of" appears everywhere in the field. Go browse through the quoted text of the CFAA here and see what you can find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
I'm not interested in getting involved in a philosophical discussion about whether anarchic hacking "should" be a crime. I'm saying that given the text of that article, an enterprising prosecutor could probably get a conviction for one.
Don't fuck with other people's systems. Even (and especially) when they're running shit code.