Who would like to be Version 1.0?

SEATTLE--Striking back at computers that are attacking a company or home network could be legal under federal nuisance laws, a technology-law expert said Thursday.

Full Story Here

Being of an aggressive nature I find this to be quite acceptable. If the law is there then it should be used for the purpose it was placed there for. What better use of the law than to close down infected processes or machine or retaliate against a hack in progress - after all, they are clearly nuisances?

Thoughts anyone, (other than the obvious - no-one has tried it in a court yet....<S>)

Well as pointed out in the article, there still is the big "What if.." kind of question. What if it you were attacked by someone but they spoofed the IP? So you go after the wrong victim. They in turn sue your ass. And then there's the intermediatary parties. Like ISPs, who generally in their AUPs don't like this kind of stuff. Lawsuit for breach of contract?

I don't like the idea of vigilante hacking. It can lead to some disaster happening, especially when you don't know who you are dealing with on the other end.

In some ways, this does seem like a good idea. On the surface atleast.

But the problem does arise, where is the line drawn? What, exactly, is a niusance?

Quote:

---

The law allows you to go in without permission and abate, or stop, the nuisance. *You can even sue the malefactor for the expense of the abatement*.

---

This, especially, raises the alarm. It seems sort of like someone breaking into your house, stealing you blind, cutting themselves on purpose before they leave with your stuff, and suing you for $100,000. (It's happened, and been awarded.)

I can just see it now. Some kid hacks some medium sized company, and sues them, claiming they hacked him first.

Do we REALLY need to make Cracker Wars legal, and add in an incentive like this?

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by MsMittens
What if it you were attacked by someone but they spoofed the IP? So you go after the wrong victim. They in turn sue your ass. And then there's the intermediatary parties. Like ISPs, who generally in their AUPs don't like this kind of stuff. Lawsuit for breach of contract?

---

Clearly, the law wouldn't help you if you had no clue what you were doing. In your example I would expect someone to take the time to ensure that a proper connection was being made, (3 way handshake), which would confirm that the machine connected is the attacking machine, (regardless of whether it is the owner doing the attacking), and therefore is the nuisance machine. The course of action you would then take would be entirely dependant upon the circumstances and skill level of the attacked person. For example a hijacked cable subscriber, (easy to tell from the DNS and a quick scan), may be able to be remotely shut down..... No harm done... nuisance abated.... Same applies to a lot of web sites that get Nimda'ed or Code Red'ed and there are plenty of those clogging up my IDS logs daily... they could be restarted or even patched since clearly the damned admin could care less about the problem..... It's been advertized for a year now and nothing has been done.