Top Argentine Court Wants Law Against Hackers

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/wire_story.html?uri=/dailynews/127/technology/Top_Argentine_Court_Wants_Law_:.shtml

By Reuters, 5/7/2002    

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentina's Supreme Court wants
legislation to outlaw computer hacking after rights activists
allegedly vandalized its own Web site but escaped punishment because
no law covers digital attacks.

A federal court threw out a case in April against a group of hackers,
known as the ''X-Team,'' who were charged with defacing the site in
1998 with accusations the South American nation's top judges covered
up the murder of a journalist.

Argentine law covers only crimes on ''people, things and animals'' but
not cyber assaults, according to the ruling.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said the case did ''harm to the
administration of justice'' in a formal request it sent to the
government for an anti-hacking law that would send perpetrators to
prison.

The ''X-Team'' was also accused of posting on the court's site photos
of the murdered magazine journalist, Jose Luis Cabezas, whose case has
been a cause celebre among groups claiming top Argentine officials
cover up human rights abuses.

Cabezas was found dead and his body charred into blackened bones
during a 1997 probe into Alfredo Yabran, a business tycoon with links
to then-President Carlos Menem. Yabran later committed suicide after a
judge ordered his arrest.

April's ruling exposed the cyber hole in Argentine legislation,
underscoring the need for a law that would protect Web site
productions in a nation that has been one of Latin America's Internet
pioneers.



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