Open Rights
It was also good to meet Glyn Wintle of the Open Rights Group on Sunday’s Podcast-Adam-Curry meet up. The ORG campaigns in the UK against over-burdensom attempts over-protect digital rights.
A good example is the the Hazel Blears amendment to the Police and Criminal Justice Bill that will make it illegal for anyone to own equipment that could be used by hackers. Of course that could cover almost anything, including perhaps a webrowser. It certainly includes security equipment that can be used to test web defenses. Glyn said it’s like banning sledge hammers because they can be used in break-ins, without realising that they have legitimate uses.
In the old days, when the common law ruled supreme in this country, judges and juries were able to cope with the concept of “intent”. It’s not owning a knife, but your intent on how to use it that counts. Now we are moving towards a Napoleonic Legal system, where anything and everything has to be codified, and of course no code can possibly hope to deal with the every eventuality. It’s like Soviet Style Central
The result is that law-abiding people are held up from doing their legitimate business, while criminals just carry on as before.
