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If you fall foul of this new Act, you could find yourself locked up in the pokie for up to seven years.

Hacking is now officially a crime and falls into the category of burglary or "entering with intent", which raises a very interesting point...

Given the almost total disinterest shown by police to "real-world" burglaries, how on earth is this Act going to make the slightest bit of difference to the activities of hackers?

As anyone who lives in one of the country's larger cities and who has reported a burglary in recent years knows, the cops seldom race around with their sniffer dogs and fingerprint kits to track down the offender(s).

No, reporting a burglary to the police has, in many cases, become simply a formality of the insurance claim process.

But it's not the police's fault -- they're simply under-resourced.

Well maybe that's not strictly true.

Based on my observations here, in the USA and in the UK, I'd bet good money that NZ has more than enough police to deal with large and small crimes, it's just that far too many of them are acting as revenue collectors on our nation's highways.

While I was in LA a couple of months ago I seldom saw a cop-car on the streets or freeways -- but when a call was made to report a minor disturbance, several cars arrived within a very few short minutes.

That seems to be completely the opposite of the situation here in NZ where our roads are clogged with police cars -- many of which, it is openly acknowledged, are subject to a quota for making stops and issuing traffic offence notices (aka: generating revenue).

Maybe, if we took a look at the experiences of other places such New York and Washington we'd realise that nipping minor crime in the bud seems to reduce the rate of serious offending as well. So why don't the government let our police get on with the job of crime-fighting rather than being forced to act like a bunch of over-active meter-maids?

Bit I digress -- back to the Crimes Amendment Act...

There is a glimmer of light in this act -- and that's the way it is now an offence to access a computer for dishonest purposes or to access a computer without authorisation.

Does this now mean that all those spammers who deliver their dross containing faked sender addresses to mailservers around NZ are now in breach of the Act and therefore liable for prosecution?? Maybe a certain fellow in Christchurch should be aware of this potential.

I would suggest that all ISPs post a notice on their website which says something along the lines of "access to our mailservers for the purpose of delivering spam is expressly prohibited." This would immediately make any spammers delivering mail to that ISP's customers in breach of the new law.

I know that the next time I receive an item of spam sent from within NZ using a faked address I'll be reporting it to the police and waiting for action to be taken (fat chance eh?).

On a darker note -- that P2P software sitting on your PC might now be illegal and you could be liable to that seven-year prison term I spoke of.

Yes, the new Act makes it an offense to make, sell distribute or possess software to commit a crime. Now let's see -- isn't there a law somewhere that says it's illegal to copy music and other intellectual property without the permission of the owner? Hmmmm....

Will the police now be seen launching dawn raids on the homes of spammers and file-traders?

I think not. I would wager that they'll simply set up a road block further down the street and try and do them for an expired warrant of fitness or failure to carry their drivers licence -- after all, there's more money in that isn't there?

And as a footnote -- I'm not taking a dig at the police today and neither should you. We must remember that the priorities police place on their tasks are effectively dictated by their political task-masters. It's our politicians who have decided it's more important to turn the police into defacto tax-collectors than crime fighters.

It's also our politicians who have passed a law which, it would appear, the police simply don't have the resources to enforce, because they're all on traffic duty. What a fat lot of good that is!

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