Re: Cybersecurity

Re: Cybersecurity.

Some thoughts from an amateur (non-expert) on this matter.

We need to define aggression in the cyber world, which means we have to define property law in the cyber world. Many governments have already done this and industry bodies are surely involved with writing these laws. The idea is to subject them to libertarian scrutiny so that they do not foreclose competition and legitimate exchanges.

To get started on this topic from the angle of property and law, see here and here.

A site has an address and protocols (both codes) to control its content. There is mixing of labor with materials that creates a unique and definable property at a certain place. (Copying the site somewhere else raises the question of intellectual property. If it’s done to defraud, then it becomes a crime. If it’s done to undermine the original, then this too becomes a crime in my book; but all libertarians may not agree.)

Those difficulties aside, the site establishes a fence or boundaries around the property. This can be enhanced by firewalls, software to stop viruses, hacking, etc., and those are additional evidence of fencing going on. A fence is an earmark of property as is the very act of its creation. Hence, statutes forbidding invasion, trespass, theft of content, destruction, ransom, all become feasible. The actual criminal (or not) content of the interactions is where the libertarian analysis might be applied, and that depends on the particulars of a case.

Hacking into a site that is supposed to have confidential e-mails or any confidential material, such as a list of donors, begs for analysis. The case of stealing bank account numbers and such are more clearly crimes. What if a hacker obtains ad copy in process from a company and then uses it for his own company purposes? To my mind, all such hacks are thefts of confidential material, and they are crimes. Anything that’s fenced off that is crossed without permission can be turned into a serious crime, more than mere trespass.

I’m arguing that the critical legal justification for seeing or calling out a string of possible crimes, minor to major, is creating the fence or boundary that defines the property boundary. Crossing the boundary for specific content then requires permission of some sort, known to both sides of the exchange, the site owner and the visitor. The crime of hacking lays hold of forbidden material, via a non-permitted crossing.

One set of controversial cases is going to occur when content is taken without permission and republished or made available elsewhere. Was that content property? Was it intellectual property? Was that a theft? If I write a song and record it, available for playing only at my website for $1, and you hack it to overcome my non-downloading code, and take it, is that theft? I think it is, on a basis that I’ve fenced it off, but other libertarians may disagree.

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8:38 am on February 3, 2019