G.D.Shaw@durham.ac.uk (12/20/89)
Martin Ward is quite right to say that: >the effects of this disk are entirely in accordance with the standard >warrenty used by most commercial software developers however, I do not think that makes it legal. Firstly there is the question of blackmail. This can mean either making an impropor demand, or using impropor means to enfore a legitimate demand. While it could certainly be argued that they are quite within their rights to demand payment, and could reasonably disable their own program until such payment was made, I would hope that planting a logic bomb that encrypted all the user's other files would not be considered a propor means of enforcing that demand. Secondly, there is criminal damage. This is trickier, since although a great deal of damage was certainly done, technically the program acts in full accordance with the information given in the warrenty. Furthermore, it is obviously not illegal to sell programs that can wipe your hard disk (eg. Norton, or most other disk utilities). I suspect that the issue might come down to one of causality: By writing the program, did the authors (legally) CAUSE the data to be lost , or was the chain broken by a voluntary act on the part of the user. Again, my hope would be that the former is the case. The authors almost certainly knew that most users would try out the program without reading, or without fully comprehending the implications of the warrenty. They were tricking the users into executing the program, and the users were behaving in a perfectly natural and predictible manner. Please note that I am not saying that every piece of defective software is a case of criminal damage: if you write a program in good faith, the element of mens rae does not exist (though that would not protect you against a civil or criminal action for negligence). In this case, though, I think it quite reasonable to conclude that the authors almost certainly acted with malicious intent. DISCLAIMER: I am a Astronomer, not a Lawyer. The above information is not warrentied for any purpose whatsoever. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Graham Shaw, Physics Department, Durham University, ENGLAND. 091-374-2138 JANET: G.D.Shaw@UK.AC.DUR.MTS EARN: G.D.Shaw%MTS.DUR.AC.UK@UKACRL INTERNET: G.D.Shaw%MTS.DUR.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU STARLINK: DUVAD::GDS - --------------------------------------------------------------------------