back to article Lord joins campaign urging UK government to reform ye olde Computer Misuse Act

A Conservative peer has joined calls to reform the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) days after the government declared that infosec and "cyber power" are the key to British foreign and industrial policy for the 2020s. Lord Holmes of Richmond told The Register he wants to support British infosec companies, which he said were "held …

  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
    1. Peter2 Silver badge

      Re: Or just typing a url

      He set off an intruder detection system and got prosecuted for typing a URL? The article your linking to says it's more than that.

      Cuthbert, 28, of Whitechapel, London, told Horseferry Road Magistrates Court yesterday that he had made a donation on the site, but when he received no final thank-you or confirmation page he became concerned it may have been a phishing site, so he carried out two tests to check its security. This action set off an Intruder Detection System in a BT server room and the telco contacted the police.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Or just typing a url

        Cuthbert simply appended "../../../" to the URL to see if folders higher up the tree were visible - for a badly coded website of the early noughties this was a standard trick to see if there was stuff available. That literally was the sum total of his actions.

        It came back to bite the police as I withdrew all expert cooperation with them on a couple of cases which promptly collapsed and they still find it very awkward with the odious comments of "detective" Rob Burls usually pushed right back at them when help is requested.

        AC for obvious reasons because I still consider the police as barely incomptent malicious fools when it comes to this stuff.

  2. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Devil

    Given the record of this government, I don't have much hope that the resulting legislation will be comprehensible or well thought out. Any bookies out there offering the odds on them accidentally making antivirus software illegal?

    1. JassMan

      @Zippy´s Sausage Factory

      CyberUp is the name of a campaign led by NCC Group,..... It aims to rewrite the CMA to remove the threat of criminal prosecution from threat intelligence researchers.

      Given that this is effectively an NGO there is a small chance that our superlazy government will cut and paste lots of their ideas into any forthcoming white-paper and we may end up with something useful. This is totally the opposite of where gov ministers let big business write their own laws in return for a promised job post parliamenatry career.

  3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    :-) I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. .... was then. Now is IT different ‽ . :-)

    It aims to rewrite the CMA to remove the threat of criminal prosecution from threat intelligence researchers.

    CyberIntelAIgent Threat Researchers are not threatened by criminal prosecution whenever they may so easily be able to remotely and anonymously and autonomously enable and instigate, driver and lead misdirections delivering clearly evident criminal persecution charges being made available for a pre-emptive strike against investigated true foe and investigating false friend alike.

    Pull the pin on that Virtually EMPowered and Protected Device and all frenemies and foe perish in the blast. Take care, it is deadly dangerous IT and AI to both know and not know enough about.

  4. H in The Hague

    Cyber???

    Perhaps it's my age, but whenever I hear 'cyber', I think of 'cybernetics', a term which in the mists of my memory is firmly associated with the former Soviet Union. What's wrong with 'IT security'?

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Cyber???

      Perhaps it's my age, but whenever I hear 'cyber', I think of 'cybernetics', a term which in the mists of my memory is firmly associated with the former Soviet Union. What's wrong with 'IT security'? .... H in The Hague

      Nothing, if you're fond and into the prosecution and persecution and preservation of classic oxymorons/impossible marriages of conflicted and compromised convenience.

      Haven't y'all realised yet, ...... nothing is absolutely secure and secret and safe from presentation and sharing, and invariably the most powerful and controversial of matters at the most inconvenient and damaging of times.

  5. FlamingDeath Silver badge

    Force Majeure

    https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9f8784de-aa99-4eed-ab92-79a3353582bf

    Its a strange world

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Force Majeure

      https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9f8784de-aa99-4eed-ab92-79a3353582bf

      Its a strange world ..... FlamingDeath

      Thanks for direction to that info, you're a star, FlamingDeath ..... which seems simply to confirm, no matter what one might think to do to mitigate or prevent unfortunate unforeseen negative impact circumstances, shit is always gonna happen and cause one untold problems which no one had/has any effective solution for.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe I'm a cynic......

    Quote: " It aims to rewrite the CMA to remove the threat of criminal prosecution from threat intelligence researchers."

    *

    .....but this sounds like (another) "get out of jail" card for the folks in Cheltenham.

    *

    M'lud...I was a "threat intelligence researcher" employed by <redacted>. My civil service boss <name redacted> told me to <redacted> against a Belgian telecomms company <name redacted>. And since I was working at home on this project, the plod thought I was a cyber criminal. I can corroborate that what I say is true with this material from the Guardian newspaper:

    - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/21/british-spies-hacked-into-belgacom-on-ministers-orders-claims-report

    *

    "Not Guilty"

    *

    Immediate outrage in The Sun at the "waste of public money" which "this malicious prosecution represents".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Maybe I'm a cynic......

      ..."against a Belgian telecomms company <name redacted>..." -

      no,AC, the url you refer to says youre not :-)

  7. NetBlackOps

    There will be no change as this is by intention. Badly written laws are useful for the State to use against persons of interest. RICO is the best example of the worst for persecuting anyone that the prosecutors desire.

    1. Cederic Silver badge

      Well, a rewritten law could be far worse.

      I don't give a shit whether some incompetent buffoon with a fancy infosec title thinks my box is the controller of a worldwide bitcoin hacking irc botnet ransomware worm, they do not have my permission to hack it and UK law had damn well not grant them freedom from prosecution.

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