R v Gold
& Schifreen (1988) was a case that allegedly prompted the
drafting of the Computer Misuse Act. As such it was a very early case and some
of the issues involved reflected the newness of technology and the issues it
posed.
The case of R v Gold & Schifreen was a very early case
regarding Computer Hacking. In this case Stephen Gold and Robert Schifreen were
found to have illegally accessed the computers and database from British
Telecoms Prestel service. They had managed to get into the service by shoulder
surfing an engineer for the company, retrieving both the username and password.
The user name was 22222222,
whilst the password was 1234, due to the unsecure nature of both the password
and username, British Telecom received criticism for their security. As it was
so easy for these two to get into the service and even get key information such
as Prince Phillips message box, new laws had to be made in order to protect
organisations in future and to. This is where the Computer Misuse act came in
as to try to prevent circumstances like this again in future.
Originally Stephen Gold and
Robert Schifreen were charged under Section 1 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting
Act 1981. They were fined £750 and £600, however on appeal were acquitted of
all charges. This prompted Lord David Brennan to state that the current laws
did not go as far to protect against these sorts of circumstances and that they
were trying to fit the crime to legislation that it did not belong to.
The Procrustean attempt[3] to force these facts into the language of an Act
not designed to fit them produced grave difficulties for both judge and jury
which we would not wish to see repeated.
– Lord Brennan
Due to this being one of the first cases that actually had
intent to hack into the organisations system, it meant that the judge and
courts were unprepared and thus could not give a fair punishment and to prevent
against this in future the Computer Misuse Act was drawn up. This states many
different ways in which the defendant could be guilty under this act, with a
key point on intent to hack.
¨ The
offence of unauthorised modification of computer material requires:
¤ the
modification to be unauthorised
¤ the
requisite intent
¤ and
the requisite knowledge
The punishment under this act includes 6
months imprisonment or a fine, not exceeding £5000 for unauthorised access to a
computer. For unauthorised access with
intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences, a 6 months/maximum fine on summary
conviction or 5 years/fine on indictment. Same sentences as
section 2 offences for unauthorised modification of computer material,
R v Gadd (1999) Paul Gadd aka Gary Glitter was a glam
rocker from the 70’s who gained notoriety as a result of his prosecution for
possession of indecent images of children. The circumstances of his arrest were
that he had deposited his laptop with PC World near Bristol for repair. A
technician “found” the images during the repair and notified the Police. What
potential issues in relation to ACPO guidelines might there be and had this not
been a case of child pornography might there have been a different outcome.
Principle 2 of ACPO, states how a person can only access the
data if they are able to give evidence explaining the relevance and implication
of their actions. This relates to the technician, as it begs the question, did
he really need to be searching through Gary Glitters folders in order to be
fixing his computer. Because of this, I
feel that if the photos on the laptop were not found to be incriminating then
Gary Glitter may have a case for invasion of privacy against the technician.
– In exceptional
circumstances, where a person finds it necessary to access original data held
on a computer or on storage media, that person must be competent to do so and
be able to give evidence explaining the relevance and the implications of their
actions. – Principle 2 (ACPO)
As stated by QC, John Royce, the act of downloading the
illegal content must have been done with intent and this can be seen to be the
case in this scenario.
The
examinations, said Mr Royce, revealed firstly that he had downloaded the
material and secondly "that it was carefully, deliberately and
enthusiastically done".
ACPO legislation gives the police and authorities a chance
to gather further evidence in a case in order to prove themselves. However it
is need to be adhered to as otherwise would breach the Computer Misuse Act.
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