House of Lords
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838805200403 |
| Published date | 01 November 1988 |
| Date | 01 November 1988 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
HOUSE
OF
LORDS
"COMPUTER
HACKING"-WHETHER
FORGERY?
R. VGold and Schifreen
The question for the House of Lords in the present case ([1988] 2
W.L.R. 984), was whether the activity known as "computer
hacking" constitutes an offence of forgery, contrary to section 1
of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 which provides:
"A
person is guilty of forgery if he makes a false instrument, with the
intention that he or another shall use it to induce somebody to
accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not
to do some act to his own or any other person's prejudice."
On numerous occasions over several months, each of the
defendants, using his own micro-computer at home, gained
unauthorised access to and used several computers in the Prestel
Computer Network owned and operated by British Telecommuni-
cations p.l.c. Prestel is an information service which allows persons
who have the necessary micro-computers to call up a computer
database and to receive information from it. To gain access to the
Prestel computer the user enters a customer identification number
("C.l.N.") and password on a keyboard, thus causing electronic
impulses to affect a part of the computer known as the user
segment. Each user segment has three areas: (1) the input buffer;
(2) the control area; and (3) the output buffer. A buffer is an area
in a computer which is used to receive information from, or to
transmit information to, the outside world. When the user types
out his C.l.N., that is received in the input buffer and is then
immediately moved into the control area and retained there for
the duration of the logging procedure, the function of which is to
verify the C.l.N. and password as those of a valid user from the
user information stored in the computer's memory. Once the
logging procedure is completed (and this might take a very brief
time) the user is then admitted to those parts of the Prestel data
base which he has been authorised to use. When these operations
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