14 DAY TRIAL // A British teenager which is believed to be the cause of a major DoS attack launched was cleared from al charges because the law the prosecution was building its case on is 15 years old and dates back from before the real Internet explosion really happened. The case didn't mean to establish whether the teenager sent the e-mail and cleared the young man of all charges, even though his boss (the target of this attack was his employer's company) wasn't too pleased with that.
The Computer Misuse Act, which dates back to 1990 (before the widespread use of the net), outlaws the "unauthorized access" or "unauthorized modification" of computer systems. The teenager was charged under Section Three of the Act which covers the offence of unauthorized modification of a computer system.
The judge had no alternative but to accept that, since the company's e-mail server was set up for the express purpose of receiving e-mails; sending a flood of unsolicited e-mails could not be considered an act of unauthorized changes.
It is obvious the British law needs some fast updates that relate to the present technological scenery.