Breaking the law

Definitions:

Law-breaking- (criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act; "a long record of crimes. Example of illegal acts: Evildoing, transgression , - the act of transgressing; the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle; "the boy was punished for the transgressions of his father" Battray- the offense of vexatiously persisting in inciting lawsuits and quarrels Capital offense- a crime so serious that capital punishment is considered appropriate Cyber crime- crime committed using a computer and the internet to steal a person's identity or sell Contraband or stalk victims or disrupt operations with malevolent programs Felony-a serious crime (such as murder or arson) Forgery- criminal falsification by making or altering an instrument with intent to defraud Fraud- intentional deception resulting in injury to another person Had Crime- (Islam) serious crimes committed by Muslims and punishable by punishments established in the Koran; "Had crimes include apostasy from Islam and murder and theft and adultery" Hijack- seizure of a vehicle in transit either to rob it or divert it to an alternate destination Mayhem- the willful and unlawful crippling or mutilation of another person.

Breaking the law over the internet.

Thanks to the ever-shifting playground of the Internet and the vast possibilities offered by so much content, you may be breaking the law more often than you think. Theres the issue of illegal file-sharing, sure, but internet users are also at risk of breaking rules if they sign into someone elses Facebook page and change their status (a process known in web parlance as fraping) or Tweeting that the recent recent riots in London were awesome. Kinda distasteful AND illegal. This is the warning being broadcast by KnowTheNet.org.uk a project of Nominet the notfor-profit registry service for British domain names. The company is owned by its 3,000 members and makes money from registration fees. Nominet believes we are all mostly in the dark when it comes to knowing when were breaking the rules online, at least under U.K. law. In a YouGov commissioned survey of more than 2,000 people in the country, only 33% correctly answered legal questions about uploading copyrighted content like photos or song lyrics to their blog or Facebook page, 42% passed a test on defaming others on social media and 38% knew the legalities of discussing super injunctions on social media sites like Twitter. Nominet wants us all to avoid becoming accidental outlaws, and points out that examples have already been made of people like Paul Chambers. The 27-year-old was arrested under the Terrorism Act and convicted late last year after he deadpanned on Twitter that he would blow up an English airport closed by snow. Of course, this mostly serves as fodder for our consciences. Police and courts famously cracked down(harshly) on people whose drunken Tweets and Facebook pages praised the London riots, but most of the rest of us who slosh around in the grey illegal area of the Internet never get convicted. Tens of thousands of people, for instance, illegally tweeted the details the British footballer earlier this year who took out a media gagging order (it was Ryan Giggs), and got away with it, most likely because the numbers of potential arrests were just too high. Many more have jokingly fraped their friends with no knock on the door from the authorities. To say everybody else is doing it isnt a defence, points out Phil Kingsland, a communications and marketing director at Nominet. That doesnt mean its any less lawful. The reason were doing this is so people know they might accidentally fall foul of the law. That may prompt a So what? from many, but its probably sparing a thought for the ethical and legal risks to what we do online.

In fact, so much of our lives are moving onto the Internet, whether its communication through social media, collaborating on documents or taking part in a protest, that an increasing number of cases have inevitably come before the law courts involving crimes committed by seemingly ordinary people on the Internet. A case in point: the 14 people who filed before a Federal Court in San Jose last September. All of the mostly-young defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of carrying out a cyber attack against PayPal late last year in support of Anonymous, the hacktivist network that protested companies who blocked financial services to WikiLeaks. Some of these defendants are thought to have believed that they not only wouldnt get caught, but that their actions were legal and akin to a digital sit-in.