Email attack decision thrown out on appeal

Court's decision on 'unauthorised modification' to system overturned

The government has succeeded in overturning a court ruling that exposed serious flaws in the Computer Misuse Act.

Last year a teenager who crashed his former employer’s computer system by bombarding it with five million emails was acquitted by Wimbledon Magistrates.

But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) last week succeeded in its appeal against the decision made by District Judge Kenneth Grant in November (Computing, 10 November).

In the original hearing the judge ruled the teenager had not made an ‘unauthorised modification’ to systems under the Computer Misuse Act, because the email server was designed to receive emails.

But the CPS decided to take the case to the Court of Appeal because it felt this ruling could have created a loophole in the law (Computing, 4 May).

‘The police and CPS are determined to ensure that those who use the internet for crime are not beyond the reach of the law, and to make the internet a safe place for both businesses and domestic users,’ said Russell Tyner, senior crown prosecutor.

By clarifying the case law the CPS hopes to stop further internet criminals trying to get off on a technicality.

‘Taking this case to the court of appeal we have sought to clarify a point of law, to update the interpretation of that law to cope with contemporary culture,’ said Tyner.

‘As technology develops at an ever increasing pace, the law may sometimes need to be interpreted in new ways.’

It is now expected that the teenager will be retried in a youth court.

Peter Sommer, senior research fellow at the London School of Economics, says the technicality is likely to be rectified anyway when the government classifies denial of service attacks as a crime when the Police and Justice Bill is agreed.

‘This ruling is limited to emails so there could still be some ambiguity. But irrespective of this particular case, Parliament is taking steps to rectify the problem,’ he said.

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