It was pretty obvious that, although sometimes it’s better to try and make old laws apply to new situations, rather than just churning out new legislation all the time, in this case, where computer intrusions were concerned… They were tried for, I think, forging and uttering, which is where you create something fake and then convince someone it’s true, which was felt to be a bit of a legal stretch.Īnd although they were convicted and fined, they went to appeal and the court said, “No, this is nonsense, the law doesn’t apply.” actually died a few years ago – is a suitable-for-work memento to him. The two perpetrators were (actually, I don’t think I can call them that, because their conviction was overturned) Robert Schiffreen and Stephen Gold. Well, I wasn’t actually living in the UK at that time, Doug.īut, all over the world, people were interested in what was going to happen in the UK, precisely because of that “Prestel Hacking” court case. Paul, where were you when the Computer Misuse Act was enacted?ĭUCK. The Act was meant to punish three types of offences: unauthorised access to computer material unauthorised access meant to facilitate further offences and unauthorised modification of computer material.Īnd the Act was spurred in part by two men accessing British Telecom’s voicemail system, including the personal mailbox of Prince Philip. …on 20 August 1990, the Computer Misuse Act went into effect in your home, the UK. We’re going to talk about This Week in Tech History…

I’ve got something that will put an extra-big smile on your face. Welcome to the podcast, everybody, I’m Doug Aamoth.ĭOUG. LastPass breached, Airgapping breached, and “Sanitizing” Chrome.Īll that, and more, on the Naked Security podcast.

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