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PhreeZone

Ahhhh.... nice to see another stupid law...

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Ok... I can understand jail time... but life??



Depends on what system they hack into.

Let's say they hack into Air Traffic Control and get a few planes to whack into each other. Even if they're just stupid kids that didn't mean any harm, they certainly ought to be put away for the equivilent of a manslaughter charge don't you think? I believe the bill makes the life sentance possible, not mandatory.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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At some point you have to put a little faith in the system.





Ohhh....sorry.....any faith i may have originally held has been stomped into oblivion by numerous federal and state courts. Not to mention judges, US Attorneys, and several private attorneys. [:/] The only things I really hold faith in anymore are my reserve and my MAK-90. ;)

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> peoples lives can depend on the systems they may mess up

Are you also going to start holding programmers responcible if it turns out to be a bug in their software that leads to a crash of the same switches or ATC or even something like an MRI machine that accidently over doses the patient on rads because the program had a flaw that accidenty injured someone? The law can go both ways...
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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Ohhh....sorry.....any faith i may have originally held has been stomped into oblivion by numerous federal and state courts. Not to mention judges, US Attorneys, and several private attorneys.

Wow, how did we get so cynical. ;) There are actually a few people in government and the courts that have a good head on their shoulders. They just don't get splashed on the front page of the paper and on CNN every 5 seconds like the idiots. :)


"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." Ben Franklin

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Alot of software for mission critical apps that I have worked on had to signed off by a 'professional engineer' - he/she takes personal responsibility for the outcome of that system - including personal liability in the event of failure. That being said - when we develop a system - it is for a legitimate application, not 'poking around for the heck of it' (as most hackers are doing). You do the crime, you do the time - and this law simply upped the ante.

You should see the approval process the FAA has for ATC systems - one of our old network cards had an issue with being rebooted (it had to be 'kicked' twice to come up - ATC systems don't exactly get rebooted often, unless a component fries - it took years for them to even notice the oddity) - we found the problem within a few days, handed the solution over to the OEM, it's still going through approval months later - since the entire system must be tested over and over to FAA spec - mistakes are not acceptable.

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I posted this once before, but it seems to fit here too. My Father, a retired cop (also a son to a cop), told me something once when I was considering a career in law enforcement: "The Criminal Justice System is a shitty system, has nothing at all to do with Justice, but IS entirely criminal!" Over the years he has related to me quite a few stories which have illustrated his point quite well.

So, no trace of faith in the "system" from this guy! I feel as great a threat from the Law Enforcement Community as I do from the average criminal. A necessary evil perhaps, but evil none the less. And if you happen to be a cop, or prosecutor, or judge that takes offense to this, well...good! :P

FallRate

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How about Cisco stuff? Their equipment is used in almost every network including power companies, hospitals, airlines... you name it and odds are there is a Cisco router or switch in the network. If a bug is in the IOS that only triggers under rare things... but when it does trigger say it takes out a power grid in the middle of winter... should the programmers be charged? The wording of this law leaves that up to the federal courts on who needs to be charged and who does'nt get charged. THATS what I don't like.
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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you name it and odds are there is a Cisco router or switch in the network




The network I admin every day is completely based on Lucent switches. They have lots of bugs.....I don't imagine Cisco is any better. I guess many a Lucent engineer will be hauled off to jail if they fail at the wrong time. [:/]

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I think you guys are going a little overboard on your interpretation of this law




No....it's just that we have no idea what a US Attorney's interpretation will be. There doesn't seem to be any provisions or safeguards. It looks like a law that can be arbitrarily enforced and that is scary. I think a case that a programmer was negligent or even that he purposely left bugs in the program would be quite easy to make in front of a jury. Especially a computer stupid jury. [:/]

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I feel very, very, very sorry for you.





Yep...lots of bugs....the worst part is....all this mention of 911 services. Yep...we carry ALL those in a 9 state area of the southeast on this network. Do you guys feel safe yet? Knowing I'm the one that has control over this stuff.........B|

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Ooops :$ Shows how much I know about the things that are used to put broken skydivers back together...

Same thing would apply to a cell network that went down and dropped a call to 911... would the company now be charged in the death of the person if it could be proven that if the call had not been dropped would have saved the persons life?
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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OK, I have a computer science degree so I know a little about fail safe systems and I beleive it is the systems operator that is responsible for its safe operation. No system, hardware or software will ever be 100 per cent bug free so redundancies have to be put in by the user of the system.

For example, you take three routers all processing information, then there's a polling box that polls all three and takes the two common outputs. This is just one simple example of how fault-tolerant systems are designed. There are similar processes for software as well.

Of course, that assumes they get implemented in the first place :o
I'm drowning...so come inside
Welcome to my...dirty mind

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