What is the Computer Misuse Act of 1990?
The Computer Misuse Act of 1990 is a law in the UK that makes illegal certain activities, such as hacking into other people’s systems, misusing software, or helping a person to gain access to protected files of someone else’s computer. The Computer Misuse Act came into being after the 1984-1985 R v. Gold case, which was appealed in 1988. The appeal was successful, inspiring parliament to create a law that would make punishable the behavior committed by Robert Schifreen and Stephen Gold. It obviously could not be applied retroactively, but it’s goal was to discourage behavior like theirs in the future. What occurred to prompt the case R v. Gold, and ultimately lead to the Computer Misuse Act was the following: Gold watched an employee of Prestel at a tradeshow enter his username and password. Gold and Schifreen then used this information from a home computer to access the system of British Telecom Prestel, and specifically to enter the private message box of Prince Philip. Prestel becam
