Posted on 06/17/2011 4:25:24 PM PDT by decimon
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan will punish people who create or wilfully spread computer viruses with fines and prison terms of up to three years under a new law enacted by parliament.
Under the law, police can seize email communication logs of suspects from Internet service providers, among other information.
The action, which has met with opposition from privacy and free speech advocates, brings Japan a step closer to concluding the Convention on Cybercrime, a Europe-led effort.
The convention is the first international treaty to combat crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks. Japan has signed the treaty but must pass relevant domestic laws to conclude it.
Under Japan's new law, people who create or distribute a computer virus with no justifiable reason face prison terms up to three years or fines up to 500,000 yen (6,200 dollars).
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Ping
What would they consider a justifiable reason to be?
Just publish their names and addresses.
What would they consider a justifiable reason to be?
You might right now have a virus unknowingly and be spreading it inadvertently. Maybe that's what they mean.
But then again, I'm a moderate
I’m with you.
IF they’re actually convicted and found guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt - then this punishment is not NEARLY enough.
I hope this is an error in translation. Studying a virus can provide lots of learning opportunities. I even have a friend who collects some of the more interesting ones as a novelty.
An instructor in a computer security class would have a justifiable reason to distribute malware for the students to study.
I'm with you.
Yep, same crap with these jackbooted child porn and drug investigations. The government likes to exploit people's emotions to lower the burden of proof and take us away from “innocent until proved guilty”.
NYPD recently did a city-wide child porn possession bust. They posted each suspect’s name, occupation and address. It made front page news. I find it disgusting that they can essentially ruin people's lives with no trial. The media will NEVER write a follow-up article if any of them are found not guilty.
With such a low burden of proof, it's too easy to plant evidence, hijack someones machine or hijack their wireless router. If you have typical security, anyone(including someone in the government) who doesn't like you can make your IP logs look like a violent pervert or hacker.
The same applies to drug possession with no other evidence. A planted silver-dollar sized package of 90% baking powder can give you a mandatory sentence of several years and ruin your life. No other evidence needed. It's SO easy for law enforcement to do and I have first-hand experience of seeing this happen.
Disabling an Iranian reactor.
Thanks for the ping.
I'd be surprised if they couldn't do that in this country now with a warrant.
Dangerous. Consider the defense “Computer security is my hobby/profession, and I wrote this virus as part of my research.” That needs to be a valid reason or you’re going to put a lot of innocent people in jail. OTOH, anybody could claim this reason, making the law useless.
Remember, the Morris Worm was innocently designed to gauge the size of the then-small Internet, not to bring the Internet to a crawl as it did. Under a law like this, Morris could have been prosecuted just for having created it in the lab.
Fines are not good enough. Jail with a minimum 15 year sentence is appropriate for the first offense.
The punishment you propose is harsh and exactly what is needed. I understand you are moderate on how far you would go to punish them but we must show at least a little compassion.
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