Question

1. John McDanel was charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The section of the act he was charged with violating makes it a crime to transmit code, programs, or information with the intent to cause damage to a protected computer. The statute is usually interpreted to cover malicious code like computer viruses. The government charged that McDanel had sent so many emails (5,000 in a 5-day period) to his former employer that it crashed its system. McDanel argued that he was trying to force his employer to deal with a security hole in its software. McDanel was sentenced to 16 months in prison. However, after completing his sentence, the government decided that his prosecution was a mistake and moved to vacate (set aside) his conviction. The government, in presenting its motion to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, argued that the law was so vague that the statute itself should be ruled unconstitutional. They further argued that the definition of "unauthorized access," d

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

John Mcdanel's case was a case of wrongly convicting an innocent person. John Mcdanel, a hacker, particularly interested in cyber security found security flaws in Tornado's website. Tornado's website logged user credentials to next website visited by user after tornado and also showed user credentials in the url. John Mcdanel aimed to close this security hole by sending out about 5600 emails to alert the public on the security issue. He was convicted on the grounds that he had violated section 1030(a)(5)(A) of the CFAA. CFAA act protects against transmission of code and programs that cause harm to a computer. However this was not true as Bret(former employee) had an honest intention of communicating information on the true state of the security of tornado's website. He was judged guilty of the crime and jailed for 16 months after which he made an appeal. Federal prosecutors declared Bret Mcdanel an innocent whistle-blower after he had served time, determining that he had been wrongly convicted.

John Mcdanel's had served time anyways and his reputation had been affected.