Hacker Lexicon: What Is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

 
Quite a long but interesting article.
 
By Kim Zetter  11.28.14 
 
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In 1984, the world was just emerging from its digital Dark Age. CompuServe, the world’s first commercial email provider, was still trying to interest users in its fledgling service, and computer viruses and worms were still largely the stuff of engineering-school pranks. But even through the foggy haze of the internet’s early days, lawmakers saw clearly the importance that computers and computer crime would have on society. That’s when Congress enacted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, also known as the CFAA. The federal anti-hacking statute prohibits unauthorized access to computers and networks and was enacted to expand existing criminal laws to address a growing concern about computer crimes. But lawmakers wrote the law so poorly that creative prosecutors have been abusing it ever since.
 
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