legaleagll writes "According to this article , a British Judge has ruled that a teen who sent approximately 3,000,000 e-mails to his former employer was not in violation of the U.K.'s Computer Misuse Act. It appears that the Computer Misuse Act is a bit outdated being that it was created 15 years ago when a number, perhaps most, of the current methods for misuse of computers were not contemplated."Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='doj,internet';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; British Teen Cleared in "E-mail Bomb" Case Log in/Create an Account | Top | 45 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 45 comments 0: 41 comments 1: 28 comments 2: 20 comments 3: 7 comments 4: 3 comments 5: 2 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. 'editors' heh (Score:3, Informative) by Neil Blender (555885) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 02, @11:42PM (#13938546) Summary says 3 million, the article clearly, even hyperlinked so it's highlighted, says 5 million. [ Reply to ThisRe:'editors' heh by austinpoet (Score:2) Thursday November 03, @12:10AMRe:being that by Neil Blender (Score:2) Thursday November 03, @12:04AMRe:being that by utnow (Score:1) Thursday November 03, @12:49AM2 replies beneath your current threshold. e-mail bomb? (Score:2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02, @11:43PM (#13938552) What a nerd. "If my electronic mail-bombe doesn't inconvenience my former employer, then my name isn't Melvin Q. Ucklesworth!"This is most likely what he said while rubbing his peach-fuzz moustache (nothing to twirl evilly quite yet.) [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Pros and Cons of a good piece of legislation (Score:5, Insightful) by Palal (836081) on Wednesday November 02, @11:44PM (#13938556) (http://palal.info/) How do we strike a balance between a piece of legislation that covers any crime that may not have been thought up yet, without prohibiting activities that are not necesserily criminal that will be invented in the future? This is something that no country has come up with yet and this is unlikely to happen any time soon due to various governments in power. (cough) [ Reply to ThisRe:Pros and Cons of a good piece of legislation by grogdamighty (Score:1) Thursday November 03, @12:33AMHere is what you can do: by ToadMan8 (Score:2) Thursday November 03, @12:47AMRe:Pros and Cons of a good piece of legislation by nunchux (Score:2) Thursday November 03, @12:56AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Time for a new server. (Score:2, Funny) by CyricZ (887944) on Wednesday November 02, @11:45PM (#13938562) Perhaps it is time for that business to invest in a more modern mail server. Indeed, even the lowliest of Dell servers running Linux or FreeBSD can easily handle 5 million email messages, even if sent in a very short period of time. A large amount of mail should never cause the server to completely crash, even if it does consume much bandwidth and cause other delays. [ Reply to ThisRe:Time for a new server. by OverlordQ (Score:2) Wednesday November 02, @11:50PMRe:Time for a new server. by CyricZ (Score:3) Wednesday November 02, @11:54PMRe:Time for a new server. by LogicX (Score:2) Wednesday November 02, @11:57PMRe:Time for a new server. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday November 03, @12:10AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Time for a new server. by CyricZ (Score:2) Thursday November 03, @12:24AMRe:Time for a new server. by thej1nx (Score:1) Wednesday November 02, @11:57PMRe:Time for a new server. by Anonymous Luddite (Score:2) Thursday November 03, @12:27AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. Proof... (Score:5, Insightful) by hoka (880785) on Wednesday November 02, @11:48PM (#13938576) That law has a hard time keeping up with technology. It takes a long time for laws to be made, changed, proven, and stand up in court. It doesn't take nearly as long in the technological world for attacks, defenses, and things in general to change. This is where a lot of the problems are coming from, since most of the time when you get things that are pushed out quickly there are all sorts of acts or laws such as the DMCA or Canadian Do-Not-Call list) which contain all sorts of problems in one way or another. It's just a shame it will take so long for things to really shape up.Really quite a predicament when too fast means you get poorly written laws, and too slow means the bad guys can work "legally" for a while... [ Reply to ThisRe:Proof... by woolio (Score:1) Thursday November 03, @12:19AM Your Rights Online? (Score:3, Interesting) by goofyheadedpunk (807517) <goofyheadedpunk AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday November 02, @11:50PM (#13938581) At first I was a bit confused as to why this was posted in the your rights online section, until I considered this case from the point of view of the poor bastard that got blasted by the former employee. Denial of service attacks have been around quite some time before 1990. If UK law doesn't considered this sort of computer act to be illegal what else isn't? What is illegal? [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. revenge (Score:3, Funny) by Muhammar (659468) on Wednesday November 02, @11:57PM (#13938601) maybe the company can claim that the dude made some threats in the past. Maybe they can label him as a super-advanced cyber-terrorist and extradite him to US. (Maybe they can make him disapper there - in one of the secret prisons.) Wait - with the Blunkett laws, maybe they can do this without US help. [ Reply to This2 replies beneath your current threshold. So let's see.. (Score:2) by EiZei (848645) on Thursday November 03, @12:06AM (#13938630) It's illegal to mod your gaming console or copy your copy-protected CDs to your iPod but go ahead and fuck up some email servers? Got it. [ Reply to ThisRe:So let's see.. by DarkAxi0m (Score:1) Thursday November 03, @12:26AM spam (Score:4, Insightful) by Cave_Monster (918103) on Thursday November 03, @12:16AM (#13938680) While he got off on the computer misuse charge, what about spamming? Couldn't it be argued he was sending unsolicited email to this bloke? Do the UK have such laws? [ Reply to This Only 5 million emails and the server crashed? (Score:2) by threaded (89367) on Thursday November 03, @12:27AM (#13938726) (http://www.threaded.com/index.html) After reading the article I would suggest the company that brought the complaint is prosecuted for wasting police and court time.Only 5 million emails and the system crashed? What sort of junk/badly administered pile did the management allow at the company they worked for?Are the shareholders of this company aware of the fragility of the key systems of the company they own? [ Reply to This Congrats (Score:1) by SnarfQuest (469614) on Thursday November 03, @12:28AM (#13938734) Let's all send him email's of congratulation. 5,000,000 per ./ reader seems appropriate.Or maybe sign him up for a few catalogs. [ Reply to ThisRe:Congrats by dadjaka (Score:1) Thursday November 03, @12:36AM Obviously, we need to run a test (Score:2) by ZachPruckowski (918562) <zachary.pruckowski@gmail.com> on Thursday November 03, @12:46AM (#13938792) If the editors had written it like "his previous employers, who are at this link: _______", then we'd get to see if they got around to updating that server. My money is on 'yes'. [ Reply to This4 replies beneath your current threshold.