Facebook Protests Risking Prosecution

Nik Barron - www.virus.org - 11 October 2010Security

A recent Facebook group set up to 'protest' against mymaths.co.uk

A recent Facebook group set up to 'protest' against mymaths.co.uk puts its members at risk of prosecution if they go ahead with the planned denial of service action on 31st October. Mymaths.co.uk is an educational website that provides interactive lessons, worksheets and online assessments for school and college students; it is unclear quite why they are the target of such action, but the Facebook group currently has over 6,000 members.

The plan is to "bombard" the site with emails to clog up the email server, which is a pretty straightforward breach of section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act which covers "Unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer". Such misuse of email is also covered by most usage agreements covering ISP accounts.

Sadly most of the students taking part are probably unaware that such action is illegal and could potentially land them in serious trouble, despite efforts to make them aware of the risks.

More information:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=118660011520745
http://legislation.data.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/data.htm?wrap=true

News Archive

Facebook Protests Risking Prosecution