Dutch Court Rules WiFi Hacking Is Now Legal | Hacker News Reader

Dutch Court Rules WiFi Hacking Is Now Legal

pcworld.com

26 pointsprofquail17 comments

>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.

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.

So a computer scientist and an electrical engineer are tallying up the number of computers at a Cusinart's tradeshow booth as part of a scavenger hunt.

Frustrated, the computer scientist complains that he can only find one - namely the booth attendant's iPad showcasing Cuisnart's new product line.

The EE points to the HTCPCP-enabled coffee machine and says "No, there are at least two computers in there, the microwave in the corner has one, and if you want one in the toaster, here's my card."

So basically computing scientists are close-minded rubes? What nonsense.

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.

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.

And that's why I'm glad that nerds are not judges (or that judges are usually not that kind of nerd).

I am pretty sure this judge knew the router stored data; that is where the police found the MAC address of the person accused.

Also, law is not explicit about what constitutes a 'computer'. All it says is:

  "Onder geautomatiseerd  werk  wordt verstaan een inrichting die bestemd is
   om langs elektronische weg gegevens op te slaan, te verwerken en over te dragen."

  "with automated work, we mean an apparatus intended to e used to store, process,
   and transport data using electronics means."

The only thing explicit here is that it must be electronic; breaking into hydraulic computers is not illegal. All others are open for interpretation (is copying data from an input port to an output port processing? Is digitally storing configuration data really different from having hardware switches?)

I suspect law will evolve nuances over time. For example, would an external hard disk with built-in encryption be an automated work? A SAN with built-in encryption? A home server? My guesses would be no (no real processing of information), no, and yes.

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.

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.)

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....

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.

US courts do not define new legislation. They only interpret existing laws (there is gray area in how the interpretation impacts those how those laws are upheld). Other rulings are often referenced in a decision, but it is possible to have different courts give conflicting rulings (see, for example, http://www.employerlawreport.com/2009/05/articles/labor-rela...). In that case, it is often up to the Supreme Court to decide (but, as far as I know, that is not required) and, if the legislature doesn't like that interpretation, to modify the laws appropriately.

While the legal system is different and courts cannot define new legislation, they can decide how to interprete existing legislation - if they do so it's possible that other courts will follow (however, they do not need to follow).

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?

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.

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.

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