Federal prosecutors ask an appeals court to reverse a computer-crime conviction that punished a California man for notifying a company's customers of a flaw in its e-mail service.
Filed on Tuesday in San Francisco's Ninth District Court of Appeals, the unusual request conceded that federal prosecutors in Los Angeles erred in bringing a criminal case against, and obtaining the conviction of, 30-year-old Bret McDanel. The one-time system administrator has already served his 16-month sentence and is currently on supervised release, during which time his access to computers is curtailed.
The conviction stems from an incident in September 2000, when McDanel notified the customers of his former employer--Tornado Development, which has since closed its doors--that the company's Web-based e-mail system had a flaw that could allow an attacker to gain access to a user's e-mail. The prosecutors successfully argued that that act--and the 5,600 e-mails sent to customers--had essentially damaged Tornado's system.
Posted by ooblick at October 16, 2003 10:05 PM