I have mentioned the trial of Lori Drew a couple of times before. She (attach “allegedly” at the appropriate points in what follows) created an account as a teen boy on MySpace, befriended a neighbor girl, then precipitated her to suicide. State prosecutors took the position that this was horrible but not actually illegal. Federal prosecutors decided to take a go at using hacking laws, since she violated the MySpace ToS by creating a false identity.
With a final decision to come, the judge has indicated that he will not let the prosecution mention the suicide. It would not be relevant to the hacking charge. And good luck getting a jury to convict someone of a federal crime for lying on MySpace or creating a false identity.
: Zubon
H/T: Hit & Run
If I had time, I would really like to know the prosecutions “legal” incriminations on the defendant because a ToS is a contract between the user and the service provider. In vanilla contract law, the U.S. government (EU afaik has their hands in it a bit more) rarely wants to get involved in contracts… well I just skimmed EFF’s amicus brief, and I agree with them. http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/US_v_Drew/Drew_Amicus.pdf
oh, i hate that woman. Those people lived about a mile away from me. It was really shocking to find out what was going on. The girl had issues and the lady knew it and exploited the poor girl. She really needed help.
I hope she gets what she deserves, a nice long prison sentence. Force her to stay offline and away from kids.
We need a good old fashioned witch burning. I got some torches.
Good for the judge. That would be far too prejudicial. I’m surprised the case wasn’t dismissed.
I think you can want her to pay without supporting criminal charges. The family can always file a civil case against her, in fact they probably should, but I bet the prosecutors asked them to wait.
AND the townspeople can burn her in effigy every Halloween. We don’t burn effigies enough nowadays.