The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Argentine judges want law update after crackers walk free

Argentine judges in anti-hacker plea

  • print
  • alert

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

Argentina's top judges are calling for an update in the country's laws on computer crime after the collapse of a trial involving crackers who allegedly defaced the country's Supreme Court Web site.

Last month, Argentine Federal Judge Sergio Torres threw out the case of a group of defacers, called the X-Team, who were suspected of altering the Web site as part of a protest over the 'cover-up' by judges of the murder of magazine journalist Jose Luis Cabezas.

Torres ruled Argentina's law only covered crimes on "people, things and animals" and not digital attacks, so the group had no case to answer.

Last week, the Supreme Court said the case harmed the administration of justice in the country, and called for an anti-hacking law, Reuters reports. The Supreme Court is seeking to plug a gap in the country's laws that Torres identified, during Argentina's first computer hacking prosecution.

The status of the country's laws on computer hacking is of relevance outside the Argentina, not least because the author of the infamous Anna Kournikova worm, Dutchman Jan De Wit, used a virus writing toolkit created by an Argentine, [K]Alamar. ®

Related Stories

Gaucho hackers escape legal lasso
Kournikova virus kiddie gets 150 hours community service
Anna-bug author OnTheFly 'fesses up
Anna Kournikova bug drops harmlessly onto the Net

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

More from The Register

 breaking news
NSA PRISM snoop-gate: Won't someone think of the children, wails Apple
10,000 things probed, mostly about missing kids, Alzheimer patients, we're told
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights
 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
Speech-to-text drives motorists to distraction
Will talking to you mean I crash into that car up ahead, Siri?
Flash flaw potentially makes every webcam or laptop a PEEPHOLE
But it's a Google problem - Chrome only, insists Adobe
DHS warns of vulns in hospital medical equipment
Has your doctor's anasthesia machine been hacked?
 breaking news
'BadNews is malware' says outfit that found it
Google says code harmless but Lookout says code base is evolving
Panda-peddlers cuffed for chess gambling gambit
More porridge on the menu for Chinese coders after second offence