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UK preps 'hacking tools' ban
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 4th January 2008
The Crown Prosecution Service is keen to see the new guidelines enforced.
The ban comes along with an increase in the maximum prison sentence available for computer-related offences to ten years and also a re-wording which makes denial of service attacks clearly illegal.
Many in the IT industry are grumbling about the ban, which would cover network tools such as Nmap and Wireshark if misused. The government has so far failed to allay these fears, stating only that the authors of such tools will only be chased if “they intended it to be used to commit computer crime” - no mention of what happens if a dual-use security tool is misused in such a way.
The guidelines, published by the Crown Prosecution Service, do contain a get-out clause for commercial software: prosecutors are asked to take into account whether the software is “available on a wide scale commercial basis and sold through legitimate channels”, which sadly leaves open-source and freeware tools out in the cold.
It's security researchers who have the most to fear from this draconian modification to an already pretty tough law, as many of the tools used in such research would be covered under the ban. Penetration testing – hacking into a company network with permission in order to detect security holes – is a growing business, and it's the practitioners of this lucrative art who stand to lose the most should distribution of useful network utilities be stopped.
The amendments to the Computer Misuse Act are expected to come into force some time around April of this year.
Any sysadmins out there livid at the thought of losing their network toolkit in a single hit, or are you all breathing a sigh of relief at your friendly government doing its bit to protect you? Give us a shout over in the forums.
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Comments (26)Stats: 0.036 seconds
-James Madison
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Next they'll be trying to make bittorrent software illegal because it can be used to distribute pirated software/games/videos.
This is exactly what happens when decisions are made by people that don't have a clue about what they are talking about.
its what people do that should decide if its something good or not... not what they had access to or what possibilities exist...
I know nothing of this software, so I wouldn't be able to "educate" them effectively.
Andy
Also: sigh :(
My thoughts exactly, also is itunes next? As that can rip cd's to mp3 for your own use which the RIAA claims is illegal, and oh hang on windows media player also could do this too, so does that means windows would have to be banned too (which some of you may think "can only hope" hehe) ?! (slightly off topic, but same principle)
Without the use of some of these network packet sniffing tools id be at a loss, trying to find out which device is dropping packets left right and center, finding which machines are showing on the network, figuring out why the hell im not getting internet via my new wireless router at home when any networking from end to end works fine (passing though the internet router).
Then of cause the more imoprtant reason of being able to see where one has secuirty flaws and being able to fix/secure them!!
Some of us rely on these tools to do our jobs, pffft. Sounds like the whole Germany fiasco with regards to hacking tools all over again.
Haha I concur, this is more proof that the UK is run by a bunch of idiots.
they prolly got a randomizer running if they slap extra taxes on something or ban it....
"guns don't kill people, people kill people".
Same with these tools.
Of course they can be used for malicious acts, that's why network admins NEED to use them too in order to secure their networks from such attacks.
The malicious hackers are already breaking the law (intentionally) by gaining unauthorised entry to a network.
Does the govt really think that this extra legislation is going to make any difference at all (other than make network secuity much harder to accomplish)?
Surely prevention is better than cure .
I see the same thing happening on a lot of the PCs I have to fix.
Average Joes/Janes have gotten peeved at the cost of CDs/DVDs, or given up trying to make them work right on their MP3 players/HDTVs and decided to go looking online to download them.
And there are the malicious peeps waiting with open arms with sites offering 'Free this and free that' which are all just virus and hijacking trojans.
Then bang, one seriously slow machine riddled with all the shite of the day. :(
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/hackingtools/
No guns don't kill people I do(sorry bit of happy Gilmore humor)
Let Sony install a rootkit that dishes out following info
... and the list is endless...
Seriously: They'll never know...
Great, written by someone who can't spell. That's sure to help the cause....
Very badly written too. A very brief explanation of the fact that there are legitimate uses for the tools and referring to them as "security tools" would be far more sensible. I hope another petition can be launched and this one withdrawn, but I doubt it now.
Welcome to 1984!
I suggest a national break the law day where you take a selection of ludicrous laws and attempt to break as many of them as you can and publiscise it. Given that the gaols are now full you can't get sent to prison anymore ;)