Posted on 07/11/2016 11:12:16 AM PDT by servo1969
A new federal court ruling could make sharing your passwords for subscription services -- covering everything from Netflix to HBO GO -- a federal crime punishable by prison time, according to a judge who opposed the decision.
The ruling, issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, pertained to a trade-secrets case and found that certain instances of sharing passwords are prosecutable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) - legislation predominantly concerned with hacking.
The case involved David Nosal, a headhunter who left his former company Korn/Ferry and then used the password of an employee to access the company's database and use that information at his new firm. According to Fusion, the defendant was convicted of hacking charges in 2013 and sentenced to one year and one day in prison. The appeals court upheld the conviction by 2-1.
"This access falls squarely within the CFAA's prohibition on access 'without authorization,' and thus we affirm Nosal's conviction for violations of ... the CFAA," Judge M. Margaret McKeown said in the opinion.
However, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing in his dissent, argued that the case was not about hacking but password sharing. Consequently, he argued, the ruling jeopardizes password sharing for the general public.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Not enough rules on the books...
Legislature? We don’t need no steenking legislature!
I have/had no “intent” to share....
Yeah, so they will make a felon of some little guy who shares a password, but won’t prosecute Hillary for being reckless with national security?
to the entity providing the service it is theft ...
The headline is a complete and total fraud. This is not about password sharing.
This is about unauthorized use of a password. This cannot be extended to things such as a spouse sharing a password with a spouse.
Convict 1 to convict 2:
I’m in for murder what are you in for?
Convict 2 to convict 1:
Watching Game of Thrones
that isn’t the purview of the courts. it would be a purview for Congress.
He should have demanded trial by combat.
Not enough kids in jail?
Yeah once you read the article the context is different than the headline.
Your Honor, I am Hillary Clinton.
Case dismissed!
This is Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals bill NCCOA-12345.
Akin to HR-12346, or S-12347.
Once convicted an jailed they’ll probably get HBO for free and not have to hack a password.
Idiotic Ninth.
Well, except for Hillary Clinton and her minions.
No reasonable prosecutor would prefer charges against Her Thighness.
Book review for “three felonies a day”
“The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.
In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior.
The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets.”
good luck enforcing that one.
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