Distributed computing is illegal...

[Christoph]

...in Georgia. Talk about stupid (http://www.securityfocus.com/news/300).
What do you think, flounder?

[muddocktor]

I read about this several months ago on the Anandtech forums. It's a shame that they are wasting all that time and money prosecuting someone who, at worst, is only guilty of using poor judgement. Why don't they go looking for real criminals or script kiddies who are doing harm instead of ruining this guy's life over nothing.

[Ploaf]

They would have one heck of a time proving this I think-

based on a calculation that the distributed.net clients consumed precisely 59 cents worth of bandwidth per second.

That is such an absurd estimation that it boggles the mind. Where did they ever come up with such a number. They'd be lucky if they could realisticly prove that he used more than 1000$ worth of bandwidth let alone the 400,000+ that they are claiming. I doubt that the university even paid out that much for all of their bandwidth during the perioud that the client was running. They have since backed off of that number which I think they pulled out of thin air. I really think the only reason that this case is still continuing this way is due to the fact that he and his team made such a big stink about it that it made headlines. If I were the prosecution in the case I would never back off after publicity like that. Keeping quiet and letting the prosecution find out for themselves how ridiculous most of this is could have been his best defense. Then again, maybe not.

[flounder43]

Argh! That just makes me sick. It is a sad combination of over-zealous prosecutors (aren't they all) and computer ignorance.

He didn't "steal" anything. However, give this to a jury in Georgia, and I am afraid he is toast. It is time for someone to step in that call off the dogs...like the governor.

I do think also that there may be some hope with regard to the computer crime statute which is described as being overly broad. One could argue that such a statute (I haven't looked at it) might violate the constitution because it is over-broad.

I hope some ACLU like group gets in on this. He needs help.

[muddocktor]

Ploaf,
From what I remember reading over at the AT forums, they were doing all this to him before it got to be such a big public display. I think it was in their forums that the guy started posting for help and got some publicity and people on his side. The prosecutor was already bent on making "an example" out of him before the case became widely publicized. The prosecutor was going to send him down the river and make him a resident of the crossbar hotel for a long time, with Bubba as his roomie.

[SickBoy]

Originally posted by flounder43
Argh! That just makes me sick. It is a sad combination of over-zealous prosecutors (aren't they all) and computer ignorance.

He didn't "steal" anything. However, give this to a jury in Georgia, and I am afraid he is toast. It is time for someone to step in that call off the dogs...like the governor.

I do think also that there may be some hope with regard to the computer crime statute which is described as being overly broad. One could argue that such a statute (I haven't looked at it) might violate the constitution because it is over-broad.

I hope some ACLU like group gets in on this. He needs help.

Flounder, aren't you at U of M law school if I remember right?

:)

SB

[Ploaf]

I noticed this which is the most promising piece of the entire article. A quote from the EFF legal team. I don't think they are directly involved but they can step in if necessary.
'This Is Not Hacking'
"Our problem with this kind of statute is that it is written in such broad terms that it can reach all sorts of behavior that doesn't constitute computer fraud, but can give the government prosecutorial discretion," says Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, who has followed McOwen's case.