Comment by opello
11 hours ago
What's the charge for the arrest? I thought legally intellectual property wasn't "real property." If it actually was a trade secret, it might make more sense.
11 hours ago
What's the charge for the arrest? I thought legally intellectual property wasn't "real property." If it actually was a trade secret, it might make more sense.
Just because a user has privileges to access files doesn’t mean doing so is permitted for any purpose. Accessing them for this unauthorized purpose is likely computer fraud, at least under California law as I understand it.
There are intangible kinds of property and assets that are more valuable than “real property”. Trade secrets is an obvious one, being a special case of intellectual property. It would be absolutely irrational for legal system to classify theft of iPhone as criminal and theft of IP as civil, when the former cost $700 and monetizing the latter could finance creator’s entire life.
>I thought legally intellectual property wasn't "real property."
if you break into your boss's house and copy his latest recordings (your boss is Stevie Wonder) you are not simply guilty of violating his copyrights.
"computer fraud and abuse act", or who knows how many other laws, are focused on various aspects of "you know you are sneaking about", or even if you don't, tuff noogies.
Sure but the difference in value is also obvious. Stevie Wonder has a business interest in controlling the release of his music, as do other parties like a production company and a publisher. And an early release may do harm to the value of such a recording. But I don't expect most organizations that put up security cameras have a business interest in monetizing the footage.
Depending on jurisdiction it might be theft, could be something more recently ratified that’s basically made for exactly this purpose. Could also just be a plain old federal CFAA related charge since those are pretty “malleable”.
Again, take these laws seriously and don’t do this.
Interesting. Do you have an example of where copying data like this (something with almost no commercial value, but done without authorization, whose harm is basically the disclosure of the facts of the camera's location/positioning) was charged as theft? Because it seems like in a legal sense, copying isn't theft, but the consequences of the copy becoming generally available (say a commercial interest in the data, in the Stevie Wonder example from the sibling thread) may make the damage of the copy and subsequent release obvious. I'm also curious what has recently been enacted to cover this scenario if you have a ready example?
I believe you and heed your warning. I think it's good to understand these things too though.
I worked in surveillance cameras for a long time and started my own company in the field. So, I wouldn’t be so quick to diminish the value of location/bearing.
Armed with those details, a sufficiently motivated person with an easy to obtain skill set could avoid a camera.
With airports, leaking a location for a major component of active perimeter and taxiway monitoring is a serious issue. A month before the crash, someone got into the wheel well of a plane at O’Hare in Chicago so taxiway security is not a solved problem. Leaking camera locations and bearings is dangerous.