It is illegal for someone to use software applications on a found laptop computer? I am curious to know if it is illegal for someone to use software applications on a found laptop computer. For example, let's say that you go to a bus stop and there is a laptop computer sitting on a park bench near this bus stop. You sit down on the park bench, open up the laptop's lid, and discover that it is not password protected and it is displaying the Windows Desktop. At this point, would it be illegal for you to open up a software application and use it, such as an Internet browser, gaming software, business application, etc.? You have no plans to take the laptop with you, you just want to use a software application(s) on the laptop until the bus arrives, at which you are going to shut off the laptop and return it to the park bench before you get on the bus.
Would it be legal to jump into an unlocked car and start it? No. Same situation, different object.
TLDR: it's illegal to BUY it. It's illegal to USE it. Know your suppliers. That's certainly an interesting question, in light of how the market has changed in recent years, particularly due to Amazon/eBay, but even moreso due to Amazon Fulfillment and competitors. Over on diy.se, this is a constant vexation, because we see people buy crud like this all the time, and they need help installing it. And we find it's illegal to install, not even safe, and needs to be sent back in lieu of listed product. The advanced nations do have a highly effective apparatus for screening and blocking dangerous goods. However, these protections are geared toward bricks-and-mortar retail. Can you count on something bought at Wickes, Redoute or Home Depot? By and large, yes. Is it legal to export it to you? Yes, for all practical purposes. The people selling it are in an unreachable bastion in a foreign country that would not cooperate with their extradition, and would interfere with investigation. The government knows perfectly well that the stuff is complete crud, and doing so aligns with its national policies of raising hard currency and building industrial capacity, while harming the capacity of other nations. Is it legal for the item to be listed on Amazon or eBay? Amazon and eBay say &quot;Yes&quot;. Their position is that they are merely a platform which connects buyers and sellers. They surely have excellent lawyers. Amazon is more like eBay than you might realize. Amazon opened their retail site to third party sellers. Third parties can sign up as additional sellers of a particular SKU, or write their own product listings. Since Amazon's behavior has been unchallenged, the answer seems to be &quot;yes&quot;. Is it legal for Amazon to bring it into their warehousing systems? Amazon also opened their warehousing system to third party use. That can be for companies that don't sell on Amazon... or it can be for companies that do both Amazon and off-Amazon sales; in the latter case you order elsewhere but Amazon fulfills (ships) the item. When a company both sells the item on Amazon and it ships from an Amazon warehouse, it qualifies for &quot;Prime&quot; shipping where Amazon offers that. Amazon also offers &quot;Commingling&quot; for established SKUs. The idea is that if you have widgets in the Madrid warehouse, and I have widgets in a Warsaw warehouse... and a Madrid customer buys mine - why not ship them yours since they are all the same? I get credit for the sale and Amazon &quot;owes you one&quot;. When you get a sale in Madrid, Amazon has one in Barcelona so they ship that one to your customer. Commingling is great, but what happens when I inject a pallet full of those SKUs - and they're counterfeits? Amazon doesn't know the difference, and your Warsaw customer gets my counterfeit. So do Amazon's Berlin and Wroclaw customers. Amazon ships them around the network to balance the warehouses, and now my counterfeit has contaminated the supply. I'm sitting in China. Whatcha gonna do about it? Again, Amazon has top lawyers, who have surely done their diligence. Still, the program is ambitious, and e-commerce giants break the law all the time with their ambitions. In the US, there's the &quot;Express Shipment&quot; rule, which allows small orders ($800 or less) with no duty and an informal entry process. So they ship to Mexican warehouses, and then bring the items over by the truckload. Wait, how can a truckload be less than $800? Because they don't bring it over until there's an end-user customer order, and they argue &quot;these are for individual customers&quot;. This qualifies them to breeze through customs, bypassing the quality and safety controls that prevent Home Depot from doing the exact same thing with a truckload that hasn't found customers yet. Is it legal for you (as the end consumer) to import it? No. The rules for Conformité Européenne are that the importer is responsible. When you as an end customer buy mail-order from China, you are the importer. Under EU law, if you bring a CE-marked item into the EU, you are responsible for meeting the CE design standards, and doing in-house lab testing to affirm the performance of the product. By having the CE mark on the thing you imported, you are attesting to having done that. Further, the various nations may require that a certified independent testing lab verify your testing and claims. This was historically done by national testing labs like BSI, TUV, CSA or UL. However by treaty they are largely cross-recognized: US OSHA keeps a canonical list of &quot;Nationally (by USA) Recognized Testing Labs&quot; (NRTLs) that every other agency and many other countries defer to. Big Clive is probably fine, since Clive's purpose is public ridicule, not usage. Is it legal for you to install it in your house? Oh, heck no. Every nation has rules as to what certifications equipment must meet to legally be installed in a building's electrical system. For instance North America's El NEC, widely adopted or copied, has 110.2: 110.2 Approval. The conductors [wires] and equipment required or permitted by this Code shall be acceptable only if approved. &quot;Approved&quot; means by competent testing labs; i.e. OSHA's list of NRTLs. So no, you can't install non-approved equipment in any jurisdiction with a similar rule (and you pretty much need such a rule for inspections to have any teeth).
Note that what is being bought or sold here is actually information about the exploit. Attempting to criminally penalize the transmission of information in the US often runs into First Amendment issues. If a person has good reason to know that information is going to be used to commit a crime, or is likely to be so used, and there is no plausible legitimate use for the information, that person might be charged with complicity or conspiracy for distributing the information. But where there are legitimate uses, that is much less likely. Here the information could be used to defend against the exploit, or to identify and remove software subject to the exploit, or for research into such exploits generally. There may be other legit uses as well. Some years ago the Federal government attempted to prosecute a person for exporting a book describing how to create an encryption program. The courts eventually ruled that this was protected speech. I suspect a similar ruling would be made in the sort of case described in the question, but the details would matter.
This could be a violation of 18 USC 1030 (and a crime). A number of things go into requirements for conviction under this law. First, it has to be a computer, which is defined as an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions, and includes any data storage facility or communications facility directly related to or operating in conjunction with such device, but such term does not include an automated typewriter or typesetter, a portable hand held calculator, or other similar device Any printer that I have encountered in the past 40 years counts as &quot;a computer&quot;. Second, (2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains—...(C) information from any protected computer; It is highly likely that the person printing has to receive some information from the printer, and respond accordingly so you have your &quot;obtains information&quot; element. Maybe not useful information, but information nevertheless. It also has to be a protected computer, (B) which is used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States Well, a computer connected to the internet is a protected computer, see US v. Trotter, 478 F.3d 918. Also, the access must be &quot;without authorization or exceeds authorized access&quot;. The law doesn't explain with &quot;without authorization&quot; means, but the latter is defined as to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter If the law were stated in terms of &quot;prohibited access&quot;, meaning &quot;express denial of permission&quot;, and if the computer owner had set the computer to &quot;prohibited access&quot; by default (password protected), there would be no issue -- accessing the computer is prohibited. &quot;Unauthorized&quot; can also mean &quot;has not been explicitly authorized&quot;, i.e. lacking any indication one way or the other. Every computer access is initially unauthorized, until authorization is granted; and re-trying a login after mis-typing a user name (and being denied access) is not a violation of this law. There does not appear to be case law that addresses the status of computers just left open to the public, and whether using a computer that is so exposed constitutes &quot;unauthorized access&quot;. Also, it is not clear that the defendant in this case has &quot;obtained information&quot;, since with printing, information flows into the computer. There is also a clause about recklessly causing damage, but I don't see what damage would result (&quot;damage&quot; is defined as &quot;any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information&quot;), and how printing would be &quot;reckless&quot;. It seems somewhat unlikely that this would be deemed to be a crime, though if you experiment, you could be on the cutting edge of new case law.
The software can’t be patented Since it was published before the patent application was lodged, the patent application should be rejected since it is based on prior art. You (or anyone else) can lodge an objection to the patent application on that basis to help the patent examiner find the prior art.
IANAL, and as @GeorgeBailey suggests, you should ask one. That said, some aspects of your question are directly addressable with what we know. Does US law states anything about this? Yes. Federally this falls under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. §2511. Workplace monitoring generally falls under either the "System Administrator Exception" or under Consent. In general, continuing past a banner constitutes consent. Does company policy enforcement with such a warning over ride the right to not be subject to surveillance? In general, yes. You don't need to use the companies network if you don't want to consent - and they don't need to hire you if you don't want to use their network. But it's their network, and their rules apply. There are some nuances, and courts have found that the wording of the notice has made a difference in some cases, but overall, if the systems are properly posted with banners, then the employer may capture communications. See the "Bannering and Consent" section of this article from cybertelecom.org, e.g.: Even if no clicking is required, a user who sees the banner before logging on to the network has received notice of the monitoring. By using the network in light of the notice, the user impliedly consents to monitoring pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(c)-(d). Note that stored data is covered by different laws than communications. It's a nuance. Is it ethical to sniff all the data without giving any other warning than the logon banner? "Ethical" is a very different question than "Legal", and largely more subjective. Most employers require signed consent for monitoring as a condition of employment, and use banners thereafter. That is ethical by my definition, in that it meets or exceeds the requirements of the law, and does not mislead or use subterfuge. The tone of your question suggests you find it distasteful, and therefore probably it violates your personal code of ethics.
Presumably by &quot;is illegal&quot; you mean &quot;violates copyright law&quot;. Copyright infringement is simply &quot;copying / distributing without authorization&quot;, which refers to the original work and not some other work. The act of originally writing a book is not &quot;copying&quot; (likewise &quot;taking a picture&quot;, etc), so the act of writing a book using pirated software is also not copying and not infringement. Nevertheless, the scope of remedies for the original infringement is not limited to just the cost of the infringed work. Under 17 USC 504(b), The copyright owner is entitled to recover the actual damages suffered by him or her as a result of the infringement, and any profits of the infringer that are attributable to the infringement and are not taken into account in computing the actual damages. This is sufficiently open-ended that profits from the sale of an original work created using infringed software could be attributable to the infringement.
how could these ordinary people sue somebody for taking their pictures without permission, when there are tabloid journalists who do this every day to celebrities ? (And obviously they get away with it.) Tabloid journalists only get away with it when the pictures are taken in public, where there is no expectation of privacy. No permission is required in this case. Conversely, the IT guy apparently took photos of the laptop users when they were at home etc. where privacy is pretty much expected and therefore permission is required.