illegally aquired information in Sweden In Sweden can information illegally acquired by an unconnected person be used in the prosecution of crimes? Say a person stole a laptop, found evidence of illegal activity on it and gave it to the authorities saying he stole it. Could it be used against the owner? Further are there any special classes of information that change the answer? Like say medical or financial data, child porn or terrorism.
It most likely can be used (there is no "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine). Drawing on this analysis (I can't locate Nytt juridiskt arkiv 1986 online). (Rättegångsbalken, SFS 1942:740) Chapter 35 Section 1 (35 Kap.) allows free "sifting, submission, evaluation" of evidence. Evidence can be rejected as insignificant. Specifically (following the analysis paper), The Swedish legal system does not prescribe that it is forbidden to present an item of evidence which the party has got hold of while breaking the law. Neither is the court prevented from ascribing such a proof a great value. In one instance, blood was illegally drawn (only a doctor or registered nurse may legally draw blood). The Supreme Court ruled that The fact that the blood sample was drawn by a laboratory assistant does not imply such a divergence from the Code of Judicial Procedure that it can be seen as a violation of the Instrument of Government Chapter 2 Section 6. Neither has any of the Swedish fundamental principle of law been set aside in a way that prevents the submission of the blood sample. "Surplus information" obtained by coercive means can also be used as evidence (i.e. information obtained incidentally, not related to the crime in question). Some limitations seem to have been recently imposed, taking the form on tightening warrant requirements and data retention.
Yes, it's illegal. 18 USC 1030 (a) (5) (A) [Whoever] knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer [shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section]. &quot;Damage&quot; is defined at (e)(8) to mean &quot;any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information&quot;. Your proposed attack would certainly cause impairment to the availability of the Stack Exchange system and the data and information which it hosts. Whatever else you may think about the Stack Exchange terms of service, they certainly do not authorize any user or moderator to &quot;destroy the site&quot; in any sense such as you describe. It's not necessary for the TOS to explicitly say &quot;you may not do X&quot;; it's enough that they don't say that you may do it. To use a firewall analogy, it's &quot;default deny&quot;. &quot;Protected computer&quot; is defined in (e)(2) to mean, essentially, any computer that is used in or affects interstate commerce. Which means practically every computer that has ever accessed the Internet, and certainly includes Stack Exchange servers. So your proposed attack would include all the elements of a violation of this section. Such a violation is punishable by up to five years' imprisonment if it causes a loss of more than $5000 (see (4)(A)(i)(I)), which if such an attack were successful, it certainly would. Greater penalties are possible in certain circumstances. Even if the loss does not exceed $5000, or if the attack is merely attempted but without success, it is still punishable by one year imprisonment or a fine ((4)(G)(i)). There is nothing in the terms of service saying you will go to federal jail for destroying stack exchange. Irrelevant. It is not up to Stack Exchange Inc. or its TOS to determine who does or doesn't go to federal prison. Rather, it is up to Congress to determine what conduct deserves such punishment (as they did in 1984 by enacting this law), up to federal law enforcement and prosecutors to investigate and make a case against an alleged violator, and up to the federal courts to determine if the accused is guilty and how they should be punished.
Yes and no. Using deception to get someone to open the door so that you can execute a warrant is okay (United States v. Contreras-Ceballos, 999 F.2d 432). Leading a criminal to believe that you are a crime-customer (e.g. for purposes of a drug sale) and not a police officer is okay (Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206), but must be limited to the purposes contemplated by the suspect and cannot turn into a general search. Lying about whether you have a warrant is not okay (Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S. 543, Hadley v. Williams, 368 F.3d 747), nor is it okay to lie about the scope of a warrant (United States v. Dichiarinte, 445 F.2d 126). Misrepresenting the true purpose of entry, even when the person is identified as a government agent, negates consent (US v. Bosse, 898 F. 2d 113; United States v. Phillips, 497 F.2d 1131; United States v. Tweel, 550 F.2d 297). However, there is no requirement to be fully forthright (US v. Briley, 726 F.2d 1301) so you can gain entry saying that you "have a matter to discuss with X" even when the intent is to arrest X. In a case similar to what you describe, United States v. Wei Seng Phua, 100 F.Supp.3d 1040, FBI agents disrupted internet access and then posed as repairmen to gain access to the computer. Their efforts were wasted, as fruits of the poisonous tree.
No. In the United States, lying is not a crime. Unless it is done: under oath (in which case it's called perjury) or to a law enforcement agent conducting an investigation (in which case it's called obstruction). There are also the civil torts of slander (oral) and libel (written) if someone lies and damages the reputation or business interests of a person or company. Collectively, and without distinction, these are called defamation. Lying also has a close cousin &mdash; the civil tort of fraud &mdash; which usually applies to inducement into a transaction or a contract. There are also consumer protection statutes (federal and state) that deal with truth in advertising, truth in lending, lemon laws, etc. But those are primarily civil statutes and the last two are pretty far afield from your question. But none of that applies to the Facebook case you described. So, no.
Caution: I am not a lawyer. It depends on who is doing the collecting and storing. If it is done "by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity", then it is exempt from the GDPR, as per Art. 2. Beware, however, that "purely personal activity" means that you do not share or publish them. In this court case, having the name or phone number of someone else on your "personal" website constitutes "processing of personal data wholly or partly by automatic means within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 95/46".
It is almost certainly illegal. I was unable to find UK provisions but the penalties for stealing an Australian passport are 10 years imprisonment or a fine of up to 1,000 penalty units (at time of writing a penalty unit was $170 so, $170,000) (Section 32(4) of the Australian Passports Act 2005). Under this law, the crime is knowingly having it in your possession when you know it isn't yours. Obviously, normal familial relationships would not be prosecuted (i.e. one member of the family carrying all the family's passports). Certainly, if the true owner asked for it and the possessor refused, that would trigger the crime. Furthermore, it is completely pointless - all the original owner has to do is report it stolen and apply for another one.
I infer from the use of the past tense &quot;worked&quot; that you no longer work for the company in question. Also, from the fact that you are wondering whether there might be negative consequences, I infer that you do not have permission to use the systems in question. The specific consequences will depend on where the company and its computers are located, as well as on the nature of the systems you log in to and on what you do with those systems, but it's certainly possible to receive a penalty of several years' imprisonment. The fact that you created the system in question makes no difference.
In general As Dale M explained, if you give the money to someone who is not obviously authorized by the business to accept money and sell stuff in exchange, you have not entered into a valid sales contract. That means you are taking things without permission. Therefore the shop could sue you for any damage this causes (maybe you took something the shop did not want to sell, or the person at the information desk was not an employee and ran away with the money). However, whether this constitutes a crime such as theft will depend on jurisdictions. Germany In Germany, for example, it would probably not, because by definition a theft requires "intention to take posession in violation of the law" (StGB §242). You could argue that you did not intend to violate the law, because you paid the required amount, and only gave the money to the wrong person by mistake. Of course, I cannot guarantee that will convince the judge... England and Wales Similarly, the law in England and Wales defines "theft" in section 1 of the Theft Act 1968: A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; [...] Furthermore, section 2 says: A person’s appropriation of property belonging to another is not to be regarded as dishonest— [...] (b) if he appropriates the property in the belief that he would have the other’s consent if the other knew of the appropriation and the circumstances of it; or [...] So, similar to the situation in Germany, you could argue in court that you intended to buy the item legally, and believed that the shop would be okay with that.