Hacking Germany’s New Computer Crime Law

Be careful what you joke about at the water cooler in Germany these days — even a dig about a password stuck to a PC monitor could be considered breaking a new anti-hacker law that went into effect this month. Under the new law, such a joke could be construed as making the password “accessible.” And that’s just the beginning. If a customer tells a sales clerk at a German office supply store that he’s going to use his newly-purchased Windows XP software to hack into a bank, the clerk could get busted for selling him the OS.

Be careful what you joke about at the water cooler in Germany these days — even a dig about a password stuck to a PC monitor could be considered breaking a new anti-hacker law that went into effect this month. Under the new law, such a joke could be construed as making the password “accessible.” And that’s just the beginning. If a customer tells a sales clerk at a German office supply store that he’s going to use his newly-purchased Windows XP software to hack into a bank, the clerk could get busted for selling him the OS.
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=132255

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