If a car has unlocked doors and the keys are in ignition is it legal to take that car?
I'm not talking about stealing a car. That would be hijacking or shutting down the entire website.
If you want to go the "car analogy" route, then put a whiteboard on your car, and claim it's illegal when somebody comes along and writes on the whiteboard. This is still a pretty crappy analogy.
The best analogy would be making something intended for one purpose, but somebody uses it for another purpose. Then, since it's bad for business, you sue the person who used the item as not intended. It just seems ridiculously unfair.
I'm talking about things like Web 2.0 profiles. The TOS on these things are that the entire use of the website is without warranty... yet if somebody comes along and makes a worm on these sites, a worm which harms nothing other than these warrantless profile pages, that's illegal?
Another example: Let's say Myspace said: "Feel free to use Javascript in your profile." Would it be OK to make the worm? It's just javascript, after all.
Making a worm that changes something on a site means disrupting the service between a service provider and a customer, it is not just using something for another purpose.
If something is easy to do or the actual damage is small does not make that something more "right".
Comments
If a car has unlocked doors and the keys are in ignition is it legal to take that car?
I'm not talking about stealing a car. That would be hijacking or shutting down the entire website.
If you want to go the "car analogy" route, then put a whiteboard on your car, and claim it's illegal when somebody comes along and writes on the whiteboard. This is still a pretty crappy analogy.
The best analogy would be making something intended for one purpose, but somebody uses it for another purpose. Then, since it's bad for business, you sue the person who used the item as not intended. It just seems ridiculously unfair.
I'm talking about things like Web 2.0 profiles. The TOS on these things are that the entire use of the website is without warranty... yet if somebody comes along and makes a worm on these sites, a worm which harms nothing other than these warrantless profile pages, that's illegal?
Another example: Let's say Myspace said: "Feel free to use Javascript in your profile." Would it be OK to make the worm? It's just javascript, after all.
Making a worm that changes something on a site means disrupting the service between a service provider and a customer, it is not just using something for another purpose.
If something is easy to do or the actual damage is small does not make that something more "right".