Ask HN: What constitutes illegal hacking?

1 points by aaronkrolik ↗ HN
At what point does computer security research become hacking? What can happen if you violate TOS? Is intent, not the act, more important?

2 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] thread
—(1) A person is guilty of an offence if— (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to computer secure access to any program or data held in any computer; . (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/pdfs/ukpga_19900...

so its pretty clear, if you make a computer do something which may ultimately lead to gaining unauthorised access- and it is your intention that doing so may lead to unauthorised access then....you've just broken the law (in the uk). note you dont actually have to gain unauthorised access you just have make the computer perform and action and have the intent of gaining unauthorised access.

so if you've performed the action of coming on hackernews in your browser with the intent finding a way to gain unauthorised access, guess what? youve just broken the law! someone call the cops