On 00 Jan 00 00:00:00, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu said:
Be careful, it's not as clear-cut as it may seem. At least in one US District Court, portscanning was held to be legal (or more precisely, that you couldn't count the cost of investigating one against damages)...
s/was held to be legal/was not in and of itself held to be illegal/. Just a slightly different meaning there.. ;) I'll let the lawyers argue how to define "damages" as stated in 18 USC 1030(a)(5) - I wouldn't be surprised if a lawer attempted to claim that merely *FINDING* a vulnerability, but not exploiting it, causes "damage" the same way that driving past somebody's house and yelling "you have termites" causes damage if you investigate and finding that you do, in fact, have a termite problem. Of course, IANAL, and if anybody wants to cite case law please do so. ;) -- Valdis Kletnieks Operating Systems Analyst Virginia Tech