Hacking Away at Illegal Hackers: How Canada Deals with Cyber Crime
By Prempal Singh
On March 15, 2017, the united states Department of Justice declared that they were putting charges against four people accused of hacking four hundred Yahoo email accounts in 2014. Two of the accused are Russian intellect officers and a third was in the united states but has since fled to Russia. The fourth is one of our own, Hamilton native Karim Baranov, age 22.
Baranov has been roasted by press and law enforcement because he openly flaunted his love of luxury items online. When people asked how he could manage these things, his response is that he was providing online services.
In the court of general public opinion, it sounds like Baranov is guilty of the crimes he’s charged with, even though “online services” could mean everything from interesting video talks to tech support.
This kind of article is not about Baratov. He is presently in jail awaiting his bail hearing in April and plans to deal with his extradition to the US where he would face charges of a conspiracy to commit computer scam and abuse, conspiring to commit access device scam, conspiring to commit line fraud and aggravated identification theft.
This article is about how precisely we address cracking in Canada.
It must be said right off the bat that not all cracking is illegal. Among the descriptions of hacking is writing computer programs just for fun, which is not against the law if the programs are safe.
The other definition of hacking is the one most people are most acquainted with, which is the act of getting into a computer illegally.
Although it’s never called cracking in the Canadian Offender Code, the section interacting with the crime is the one used to deal with mischief. That’s right; the laws against hacking are in the same position you find the legislation punishing leaving flaming carriers of poop on doorsteps on Devil’s Night.
The crime of hacking in Canadian law is called “Mischief in relation to computer data” and is defined as willfully:
1. Destroying or altering computer data
2. Rendering computer data useless, useless or unproductive.
3. Preventing, interrupting or interfering with the lawful use of computer data
4. Obstructing, interrupting or interfering with a person in the legal use of computer data or denying usage of computer data to a person who is entitled to access to it.
The punishments are the same concerning any other kind of mischief crime. If perhaps the act put a life in danger, you aren’t liable to spend life in jail. If the crime caused damages well worth five thousand dollars or more, it’s an indictable offense with a maximum sentence of ten years in jail or a summary conviction which would mean six months in jail or a 5000 dollar fine. If the value of the harm was below five thousand dollars, you’re facing either a summary conviction or an indictment with up to two years in jail.
Like many criminal offenses, hacking is often done with intention of commit other crimes like fraud, robbery, and unauthorized uses of credit card data. A person guilty of cracking could therefore also be found guilty of additional crimes, many of which – like fraud-carry stiffer penalties than mischief.
Canadian law also holds a person liable if they counseled or made it easier for someone else to devote a crime and they can face the same penalty as the criminal who actually did it. They can also face those penalties if they knew or must have known the crime could be committed because of this with their actions or lack thereof.
Though Canadian governments have been criticized as being ill-equipped to deal with computer crime, the federal government appears to be doing its best not only to protect itself from cyber-attacks but also to teach all of us to protect ourselves.
In 2010, the Harper Federal government launched the Cyber Secureness Strategy outlining an everlasting national plan to offer with computer crime. The website getcybersafe. gc. California was created by general public Safety Canada and is packed with guidelines for common citizens and businesses with the purpose of keeping Canadians more secure by increasing awareness of common online threats and how to fight them. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre was created by a joint effort by the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Law enforcement officials, and competition Bureau to fight mass marketing scam online and is regularly updated with information regarding popular scams.
Technology is advancing at a large speed than ever and our governments are trying to catch up to shield the victims. The problem with the initiatives is that they seem to be to put almost all of the pressure against cybercrime on potential victims, which could lead to victim-blaming even in cases where, as a consequence of age or infirmity, a person might not exactly be tech savvy enough to take every precaution. Their particular plan needs work to put the onus backside on law enforcement against cyber-crime back on those charged with protecting all of us, but at least it can there.
Source: www.forgetthebox.net