Elon University

Archives: Expert Predictions

When Does Hacking Turn From An Exercise of Civil Liberties Into Crime?

A policy on electronic crime should offer protection for security and privacy on both individual and institutional systems. Defining a measure of damages and setting proportional punishment will require further goodfaith deliberations by the community involved with electronic freedoms, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, the bar associations, technology groups, telephone companies and civil libertarians. It will be especially important to represent the damage caused by electronic crime accurately and to leave room for the valuable side of the hacker spirit: the interest in increasing legitimate understanding through exploration.

When Does Hacking Turn From An Exercise of Civil Liberties Into Crime?

We know that electronic freedom of speech, whether in public or private systems, cannot be absolute. In face-to-face conversation and printed matter today, it is commonly agreed that freedom of speech does not cover the communications inherent in criminal conspiracy, fraud, libel, incitement to lawless action and copyright infringement … One answer to this question is the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio. The court ruled that no speech should be subject to prior restraint or criminal prosecution unless it is intended to incite and is likely to cause imminent lawless action … As in traditional media, any online messages should not be the basis of criminal prosecution unless the Brandenburg standard is met.

When Does Hacking Turn From An Exercise of Civil Liberties Into Crime?

All electronic “publishers” should be allowed equal access to networks. Ultimately, there could be hundreds of thousands of these information providers, as there are hundreds of thousands of print publishers today. As “nodes,” they will be considered the conveners of the environments within which on-line assembly takes place … Anyone who objects to the content of a node can find hundreds of other systems where they might articulate their ideas more freely. The danger is if choice is somehow restricted: if all computer networks in the country are restrained from allowing discussion on particular subjects or if a publicly sponsored computer network limits discussion.

When Does Hacking Turn From An Exercise of Civil Liberties Into Crime?

Freedom of speech on networks will be promoted by limiting content-based regulations and by promoting competition among providers of network services … The underlying network should essentially be a “carrier” – it should operate under a content-neutral regime in which access is available to any entity that can pay for it. The information and forum services would be “nodes” on this network … Each service would have its own unique character and charge its own rates. … They should not be allowed to change the content of a message or to discriminate among messages. This kind of restriction will require shielding the carriers from legal liabilities for libel, obscenity and plagiarism.

When Does Hacking Turn From An Exercise of Civil Liberties Into Crime?

It is certainly proper to hold hackers accountable for their offenses, but that accountability should never entail denying defendants the safeguards of the Bill of Rights, including the rights to free expression and association and to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. We need statutory schemes that address the acts of true computer criminals (such as those who have created the growing problem of toll and credit-card fraud) while distinguishing between those criminals and hackers whose acts are most analogous to noncriminal trespass. And we need educated law enforcement officials who will be able to recognize and focus their efforts on the real threats.

When Does Hacking Turn From An Exercise of Civil Liberties Into Crime?

The community of bulletin-board users and computer networkers … are evolving rapidly into large-scale public information and communications utilities. These utilities will probably converge into a digital national public network that will connect nearly all homes and businesses in the U.S. This network will serve as a main conduit for commerce, learning, education and entertainment in our society, distributing images and video signals as well as text and voice. Much of the content of this network will be private messages serving as “virtual” town halls, village greens and coffeehouses, where people post their ideas in public or semipublic forums.

Testimony Summary for ‘Networks of the Future’

From the ARPAnet to Prodigy, people have surprised network planners with their eagerness to exchange mail. “Mail” will not just mean voice and text, but also pictures and video – no doubt with many new variations. We know from past demand that the network will be used for electronic assembly – virtual town halls, village greens, and coffee houses, again taking place not just through shared text (as in today’s computer networks), but with multi-media transmissions, including images, voice, and video. Unlike the telephone, this network will also be a publications medium, distributing electronic newsletters, video clips and interpreted reports. It will also be an information marketplace which will include electronic invoicing, billing, listing, brokering, advertising, comparison-shopping, and matchmaking of various kinds.

Chapter 7: Getting to the Good Bits

Networks at … different levels will all have to link up somehow; the body net will be connected to the building net, the building net to the community net, and the community net to the global net. From gesture sensors worn on our bodies to the worldwide infrastructure of communications satellites and long-distance fiber, the elements of the bitsphere will finally come together to form one densely interwoven system within which the knee bone is connected to the I-bahn.

Chapter 7: Getting to the Good Bits

There will be the intimate bits. Just as clothing has traditionally formed a first interface to the physical world, so our personal electronic devices and bodynets will become interfaces between flesh and nervous system and the bitsphere … Our electronic accouterments will range from headphones to sensor gloves and the latest fashions in smart sneakers. And their designers will create the most immediate, private digital environments – our personal cyberspace.