nanog mailing list archives

Re: Stealth Blocking


From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 16:35:37 -0400

On 00 Jan 00 00:00:00, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu said:

Be careful, it's not as clear-cut as it may seem.  At least in one US District
Court, portscanning was held to be legal (or more precisely, that you couldn't
count the cost of investigating one against damages)...

s/was held to be legal/was not in and of itself held to be illegal/.

Just a slightly different meaning there.. ;)

I'll let the lawyers argue how to define "damages" as stated in
18 USC 1030(a)(5) - I wouldn't be surprised if a lawer attempted to
claim that merely *FINDING* a vulnerability, but not exploiting it,
causes "damage" the same way that driving past somebody's house and
yelling "you have termites" causes damage if you investigate and
finding that you do, in fact, have a termite problem.

Of course, IANAL, and if anybody wants to cite case law please do so. ;)
-- 
                                Valdis Kletnieks
                                Operating Systems Analyst
                                Virginia Tech

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