Computer Security & The Law

7 Pages 1650 Words

Computer Security & the Law


I. PREFACE

Imagine that you are a computer manager for a big manufacturing company. In the middle of a production run, all the mainframes on a vital network grind to a stop. Production is delayed costing your company millions of dollars. During the investigating, you find that a virus was released into the network through an account. When you confront the owner of the account, he claims he neither wrote nor released the virus, but he admits that he has given his password to his friend who needs access to his data files. Is he liable for the loss suffered by your company? I believe the answers may very depending in which state the crime was committed and the judge who control the trial. Computer security is new, and the legal organization has yet to reach the agreement on these key issues.
The future in computer security law has been delay by the reluctance on the part of lawyers and judges to struggle with the technical side of computer security issues (1). Involving technical computer security professional in the development of computer security law and public policy could mitigate this problem. This paper is meant to help bridge to gap between technical and legal computer security communities.

II. TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

A. Objectives of Computer Security

The main objective of computer security is to protect and guarantee the confidentiality, and integrity of automated information systems and the data they hold. Each of these terms has a particular meaning, which is grounded in basic technical ideas about the flow of information in automated information systems.

B. Basic Concepts

There is a top-level agreement regarding the meaning of most technical computer security concepts. This is partly because of government involvement in coordinating the definitions of basic terms (2). The meanings of the terms used in government regulations are generally made to be consta...