

Dutch Court Rules WiFi Hacking Is Now Legal - profquail
http://www.pcworld.com/article/222589/dutch_court_rules_wifi_hacking_is_now_legal.html

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paulgerhardt
> _A computer in The Netherlands is defined as a machine that is used for
> three things: the storage, processing and transmission of data. A router can
> therefore not be described as a computer because it is only used to transfer
> or process data and not for storing bits and bytes._

Secure routers, almost by definition, store some kind of authentication data
(passwords, network filters, routing data) to perform their job.

Edit: Unlike say, hubs or unconfigured routers, a secured router's job is to
transmit information _for those who have been granted access_. The line is
getting very fine now, but according to the court's statement, the
interpretation is that it would be legal to use a secured network if you
cracked the wireless password and "piggybacked" off its services (because, by
analogy, Internet traffic is routed through arbitrary gateways) but would
constitute hacking if you altered the router's configuration settings (e.g.
added your MAC address to the router's MAC filter).

My point is the student was acquitted of hacking not because "routers are not
computers" (an oversimplification) but because there was no evidence of him
gaining unauthorized access to the router itself.

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jrockway
The law is not a computer program; it is written by humans and interpreted by
humans. So while yes, technically routers do store information, their
_intended purpose_ is not to store information, but rather route it. The judge
understood that and ruled accordingly.

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exch
I don't mean to be nit-picky, but if you make a router store data so it can do
its job, then it is by definition designed to store data. Even of that is not
its main purpose.

Something as simple as the configuration files for the router (or a web front
end to edit said config) would make it qualify.

The law is indeed not a computer program, but it does in general seek to be
extremely explicit about everything it defines. It has to be. And in this case
as well, it is very explicit about what defines a 'computer'. The way I see
it, the judge did not really understand what a router really is (or can be).
And consequently made an incorrect ruling that is likely to influence future
rulings in similar cases.

This is one case where I am happy that one ruling does not require other
judges to abide by the same ideas. One can only hope that other judges are
more informed if and when the situation arises.

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SoftwareMaven
I think you have it backwards and the judge actually did rule correctly by
ruling based on its intended use. A television processes data, stores data,
and transmits information, but hacking a TV is not hacking a computer.

If courts don't make this distinction, then the definition of computer becomes
meaningless because everything becomes a computer.

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skrebbel
Nice story, bad title. Unlike the US and UK legal systems, in the Netherlands,
court rulings don't define new legislation. Some court may rule different in
another case; judges are to only consider the law, not other rulings.

~~~
JCB_K
Not true. Granted, court rulings are more important in the US, but Dutch
judges will definitely take old cases into consideration. Take a look here for
a short explanation: <http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurisprudentie> (Dutch
link, I'm sorry.)

~~~
fedd
skrebbel said that being taken into consideration and being more important
doesn't mean 'became legal'.

take a look for a map of legal systems with English links about their
differencies,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LegalSystemsOfTheWorldMap....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LegalSystemsOfTheWorldMap.png)

~~~
fmw
Skrebbel is right and wrong at the same time. It is true that court rulings do
not define new legislation in the Dutch legal system[0], but he's wrong when
he says judges don't consider court rulings. Especially rulings from higher
courts (e.g. the "Hoge Raad", which literally means "High Council" and is our
version of the Supreme Court, or European ECHR and ECJ) are important sources
when interpreting the law. So there are some factual issues with what Skrebbel
is saying, but the spirit of his post (that court rulings aren't as important
as they are in Common Law systems) is correct, especially considering the fact
that this is a ruling from a lower court.

Here is a quick translation of the relevant part of the Wikipedia article
JCB_K linked:

 _Jurisprudence is a source of law in the Netherlands. Precedents created by
Dutch jurisprudence are less strict than those from rulings from courts in the
United Kingdom [and other Common Law system like the United States]._

 _An example of the relevance of jurisprudence is the interpretation of legal
terms that can be explained differently depending on your perspective. E.g.
terms like "reasonable", "reasonable timeframe" and "carefully" [note that
these terms are a bit hard to translate. I seem to have forgotten their exact
counterparts in US legal lingo, but you get the gist of it]. Judges have the
role of interpreting the meaning of terms like that when there is some
ambiguity in the particular context._

 _Judges don't just make something up when interpreting the law: they use
interpretation methods and methods of reasoning._

 _Interpretation methods:_

 _1: grammatical,_

 _2: legal history [e.g. looking at the logs from the parliament when
discussing the law as it was proposed to figure out their reasoning]_

 _3: systematic [in the context of the system of the law],_

 _4: teleological [i.e. looking at the goal of the law]._

 _Methods of reasoning:_

 _1: A contrario: things that aren't mentioned specifically in the law are
excluded. E.g. a law that is only [and specifically] about employment
contracts, in which case freelance contracts are excluded._

 _2: analogy [note: analogical interpretation is disallowed in criminal law,
which isn't mentioned by the Wikipedia article, due to article 1 of the Dutch
penal code: "No fact is punishable other than from a preexisting written law"
(loosely translated with "written" added for clarity)._

IANAL, but from what I remember from my short stint in law school (I actually
completed the courses relevant to this issue ;), the Wikipedia article is
reasonably correct although some of the wordings are a bit unfortunate.

As to the matter at hand in the article being discussed here: I don't think I
can say anything meaningful about it without actually seeing the exact text of
the court ruling, because discussing it based on a article by a foreign
journalist who may or may not have understood the legal implications correctly
seems a bit precarious.

[0]: At least generally, there may be exceptions e.g. rulings of European
courts that tend to have a little more maneuverability, but still derive their
judgements from things like the ECHR.

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jackfoxy
Interesting reasoning behind the distinction the judge made. A router doesn't
meet the legal definition of a computer. Here's a judge with some
understanding of technology. I'm not a lawyer, but I assume in the U.S. this
would still qualify as some sort of wire fraud or trespass. No law against
illegal use of a telecom network in the Netherlands?

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tzs
I don't read Dutch so can't be sure, but I suspect the headline is wrong. It
should have been "WiFi Hacking Does Not Violate One Particular Law". There
could be other Dutch laws that it would violate.

~~~
Someone
That is correct. The judge fairly strongly hints at that; the verdict states
breaking into a router may be socially unacceptable, but it is not
computervredebreuk (breaching the peace and quiet of one's computer). For a
verdict from an impartial judge, that is quite explicit.

In particular, lawyers discussing this think civil charges (for stealing
bandwidth or electrical power) could still apply.

