Security threats Toolkit

Story: Tsunami appeal site 'hacker' found guilty

• 
• 

Evil Wizard, what you say is true only if the server was misconfigured. RFC 3986 states that webservers should be able to handle this, and this is an accepted best practice document.

Also, folks, trying a car or a house door isn't an offence either. Do it a lot and it's suspicious and neighbours would be entitled to call the police. Entering the house or "taking a vehicle without the owner's consent" (aka "twoking") is. Although the police have caught people before they've even driven off.

The only reason this conviction went through is because the judge took an overzealous view of section 1 of the Act. I read a comment elsewhere that equated mens rea with strict liability. That's not correct. Strict liability includes things like "drunk driving", since being incapacitated means that you aren't aware you're drunk.

The bottom line is there is no way that you can know in advance whether you are authorised to access any page on a web site before getting a response from the server. If you therefore truly believe Daniel Cuthbert to be guility you would be a hypocrite if you continued to access the world wide web.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread