On Tuesday 29 May 2007 05:20, Thomas Hertweck wrote: > Michael S. Dunsavage wrote: > > I'm confused. Can someone sum this up for me? I'm from USA. > > Last Thursday, the German parliament passed a concept that had been > proposed by the German government parties. The concept concerns the > German criminal code and is meant to tighten laws against cybercrime. > > According to the new §202c, anybody who prepares a crime by building, > supplying, distributing or making available passwords or security codes > for data access or typical computer programs whose purpose is to prepare > or commit such a crime, can be fined or sent to jail for up to one year. > There were other changes concerning §202, but the one mentioned above is > the one most criticized. > > Many people say that it's not possible to distinguish between programs > that might be used to prepare a crime and programs that serve to detect > vulnerabilities and secure computer systems (I personally agree with > that statement). Therefore, §202c could criminalize many tools that are > frequently used these days, for instance port scanners etc. There is no > clear definition given in §202c and at the end of the day a German court > might have to decide in individual cases. The intention of §202c, > however, seems to be to criminalize only software that might cause a > "damage". > > In order to become a law, the concept has to pass the German Bundesrat > (upper house of the German parliament) as well. This could happen in > July. Then the new concept would become a law shortly thereafter. > > It could affect openSUSE (in Germany) since the distribution of programs > that fall into above mentioned category (yet to be clearly defined) is > then forbidden.
A knife can be used to kill someone. So, does that mean that we are not allowed to have a knife? This is so stupid. I can't believe it. -- Fajar Priyanto | Reg'd Linux User #327841 | Linux tutorial http://linux2.arinet.org 6:36am up 0:14, 2.6.18.2-34-default GNU/Linux Let's use OpenOffice. http://www.openoffice.org
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