TRANSCRIPTS
crimes and other related crimes. Data crimes relate to the theft or deliberate modification of data. Network crimes involve interfering with a network to prevent access or sabotaging a network. Access crimes include gaining unauthorized access to systems and the introduction of viruses, Trojans, worms or other types of malware. The Other related crimes category includes forgery, fraud, and other existing crimes which are carried out with the assistance of a computer. This can include phishing attempts, where forged e-mails are sent to trick users into logging on to fake websites which then steal their usernames and passwords.
The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime requires countries to respond to requests from other countries to investigate breaches of the law. However, this requirement has caused considerable controversy as there is no requirement that the law in the investigating country has been broken. A spokesperson for the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, gave the example of the French government requesting the investigation of a US citizen offering Nazi memorabilia for sale over the Internet, which is legal in the US but illegal in France. The EFF spokesperson went on to say, in an article on a news website called ZDNet news, that he has no doubt that a country which signs up to the treaty is being asked, and I quote, “to spy on its citizens.”
Another area where international treaty-based
law is being created is in relation to copyright or intellectual property, which has been a controversial area for some time. The World Intellectual Property Organization – or WIPO for short – is a UN organization based in Switzerland and is responsible for a number of treaties which address copyright issues. However, some people say that when these treaties have been passed into law by governments, they have ended up protecting only the rights of the copyright holders and ignoring the rights of those who purchase material protected by copyright. Of course, copyright holders must be protected, but their rights need to be balanced against the rights of others. The evidence shows that this is especially true with respect to the US. In my view, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which was passed in the US in 1998, is a case in point. By making it a criminal offence to produce or disseminate technology to help users avoid digital rights management protection, it has damaged innovation. It has also acted as a direct challenge to those who believe that there should be no restrictions on the copying of content, as a matter of principle. A very interesting article by Steven
Furnell and others, called “Dissecting the ‘Hacker Manifesto’,” gives an extremely good insight into what actually motivates these individuals.
In addition, there are those who believe that the legislation unfairly infringes the individual’s right to back up material which they have already purchased. This has been the subject of a considerable number of legal challenges. In the EU, the same treaties have been implemented in the European Copyright Directive, or EUCD. This directive also imposes considerable restrictions on the rights of individuals to copy digital content, and is seen by some people as infringing considerably on personal freedoms. Perhaps because of this, there was a considerable delay in implementing the directive into the national law of individual countries.
There are also a number of other points for computer professionals to take into account regarding non-criminal or civil law, which I am only going to touch on here. If you want to look more closely at these, a very good resource is Lloyd’s Information Law – I’ll give you the reference later. A key issue here is contract law. Different types of contract which are relevant include an employment contract, which sets out an agreement between a computer professional and the company that employs him or her, or a sales or maintenance contract between two companies for the design, development or maintenance of a computer system. The employment contract determines what is expected of employees, and if they don’t meet these expectations, then they will be in breach of contract and can be sacked. Where two companies have a contract for the development of a system, there may be disagreements in terms of whether the quality of the system was in line with expectations. Where such disputes occur, contract law is what determines how the agreement is interpreted. Civil law can also be used in other ways. For example, individuals may claim for damages under civil law if they feel that they have been harmed by a product or service. They can also use the civil courts if they feel that their rights have been infringed, for example in the case of a breach of their privacy. An important point to note is that civil law varies considerably between countries, and it’s essential that computer professionals are aware of the general provisions of civil law in the countries in which they are working.
Now I’m going to pause at this point and …
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