No ban on hacking tools

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/cwarchive/daily/20001130/cwcontainer.asp?name=C5.HTML&SubSection=6&ct=daily

November 30, 2000

The Council of Europe has dropped proposals to outlaw the use of
hacking tools by IT departments, following an intense lobbying
campaign by businesses.

The proposals were contained in the Council of Europes Convention on
Crime in Cyberspace, which aims to make it easier for law enforcement
agencies to collaborate internationally. The council provoked a storm
of protest by including proposals in the treaty that would have made
it illegal for anyone to disseminate software and techniques that
could be used by hackers to illegally access systems.

Businesses and security experts claimed the proposals would also
outlaw the software and techniques used by IT departments to
legitimately protect the security of their IT systems. But business
organisations have welcomed the latest version of the treaty, which
makes it clear that IT departments can use hacking tools to protect
security.

IT lobby group Eurim said the new draft addresses many of the concerns
raised by industry over earlier versions of the treaty.

The involvement of industry in the development of this convention has
been beneficial and we hope that this will prevent the imposition of
expensive technical requirements that undermine confidence in
e-commerce, said Philip Virgo, secretary general of Eurim. Despite the
improvements, Eurim is still concerned that the treaty could create
new laws to cover crimes that can already be dealt with by existing
laws, such as blackmail by e-mail, for example.

We believe existing laws should be extended to cover crimes committed
using electronic means where they currently do not. New laws should be
introduced only where genuinely new crimes are identified that are not
covered, said Virgo.

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