jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) (04/21/91)
[ posted also to comp.org.eff.talk 'cause people there might be interested in the laws used against crimes possibly concerning computers in Finland ] There have been some articles about how to prevent telemarketeers bothering you with the phone. There were also some mentions about telemarketeers calling to randomly selected numbers, or all phone numbers in sequence so even unlisted numbers aren't free of this harrasment. Hearing some things about the new laws in Finland, it occurred to me: isn't such random or in-sequence calling illegal ? It would seem to be so at least in Finland now, where using other person's property or a machine without authorization is illegal (that's the one they'll be using against computer breakins here). It seems pretty clear to me that phone-calling to an unlisted number is use of the call recipient's phone without authorization, if the owner of the phone / phone line hasn't given his number to the entity originating the call. It can be debated whether the new law in Finland is good - there's a maximum penalty of one year in prison (this probably is that long partly so that the police can get a search warrant), and there doesn't seem to be any mention about harm caused or such. So, in principle if you borrow someone's pen without that someone's permission to write a note when you're visiting this someone's office and she's away, you could end up in jail for a year. I personally think it's not acceptably to pass a law as broad as this against things which generally don't cause harm to anyone - the idea is perhaps good, but there should be some mention about ill effect. Are there any similar laws in the U.S. ? There is also a law stating that reading or attempting to read a telecommunications message while it's being transferred without authorization is illegal; also destrying the aforementioned message is a crime. Maximum penalty one year in prison. So it seems that in Finland now reading someone's mail _while it's in transit_ is illegal. But I heard a police official commenting on this that when the message has been delivered, the case is different. I'm not sure if this means that it's not a crime by this law to read a mail message from the recipient's /usr/spool/mail (the situation might also be different whether the recipient has read the message or not). The good thing in the laws seems to be (in my opinion) that many of them are not specific to computers in any way. Some are however, and this is what I've always found the wrong thing to do - there's nothing fundamentally different between computers and pencil/paper or other traditional tools. In the new Finnish laws, there's a note in 'Harming another's property' that in addition to harming another's property, also harming data stored on a 'data-storing equipment' to hurt someone is a crime. This is reasonable, in my opinion, and I'm happy to see that data or information is not considered property as seems to be the trend in the U.S. Disclaimer: translations to English are my own and probably wrong as hell, as well as my interpretations about the laws. //Jyrki