Sharing Your Password Is a Federal Crime?

1. Sounds like that they should have got him for espionage not hacking.

2. next time your girlfriend wants all your passwords tell her its against the law for you to do that. :P

This is not so much about password sharing as much as "unauthorized access" to information. And then the question here is what is "unauthorized". And it is quite interesting a question considering that one of the current us presidential candidates was facing criminal charges (was) for a similar thing where in part between 2-10 third company individuals (non government, non credentialed, non authorized <maybe?>) had access to confidential information . It's very interesting all of the different scenarios and how they are approached. Scary nonetheless . 90s Internet was the best lol.

So you're saying that if I use my Mom's Netflix I should be technically jailed?

What people need to remember about this is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is just one appellate court out of many that only has jurisdiction over the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana and Nevada). This court ruling only directly affects these states and no others. Other courts of appeals are completely free to ignore this ruling and say that they're batshit crazy (which they usually are). This ruling only becomes a problem if other circuits adopt the same logic in other cases in their own regions because then there is more credibility for this argument. The only court whose opinion on this matter would be truly binding would be the U.S. Supreme Court.

And besides, there is such a thing as "prosecutorial discretion." Just because a prosecutor can technically pursue federal criminal charges against someone, it doesn't automatically mean that they will (Hilary Clinton is a recent example of that, whether you support her or not). A prosecutor may look at someone sharing Netflix passwords and rightfully not feel that it's proper to go after these people because it is different than what happened in this case. Otherwise, they would face the public scrutiny that is the undertone to this story, and they would lose all credibility as prosecutors for trying to bend this law in a way that it's really not meant to. And then when we actually get a case about someone being arrested for using someone else's Netflix or HBO Go account, then a court can unequivocally limit the 9th Circuit's ruling to distinguish between that clearly wrongful case, and this harmless use of someone else's password.

In short, as bad as it might seem, now's not the time to hit the panic button, especially since this is just one court's opinion.

Well, i guess i shouldn't have shared my First password, Rooster Teeth is gonna get me.

There is a difference between sharing passwords to watch shows to sharing passwords that allow the theft of information. Learn the difference judicial branch.

'merica, land of the free

what if you log in on a friends computer, then keep it signed in. you technically won't be sharing the password if they don't know it, but where would that fall under the law?

Just why? Simmer down America, Simmer down.

That's so fucking stupid, that court case is barely covered by the overreaching blanket law they instated.

Homeowners (1st party) can give their keys/a permission to whomever they see fit (2nd party), but if the trusted individual uses that key/permission to let someone else in (a 3rd party), most homeowners in such a situation would consider that trespassing. This is no different than a password or company property, attacking people's right to share their intellectual property is the only thing the court wanted out of this case.

As far as keeping the CFAA vague to prosecute people difficult to punish, using the ends to justify the means is possibly the most insidious form of corruption the judicial branch should protect people from.

It would not surprise me if there's a very happy lobby that finished lining the pockets of whichever greedy asshole(s) swung their vote. I'm not questioning their honor, I'm denying its existence.

This really isn't such a big deal. Sharing passwords within your household, even if it were made technically illegal, would be virtually impossible to detect or prove anyway. It's not like anyone can tell who's using the computer, and even multiple connections wouldn't prove much when many people own two, three, or more Internet-connected devices.

Any sharing beyond that should be illegal anyway, as it amounts to giving someone access to a paid service which they didn't pay for. And even if you do get caught password-sharing, they're just going to ban you, which they don't need a law for anyway. Chances are you don't have enough money to be worth suing, and putting you in prison is a pretty major PR liability.

I can see how this could, in theory, be an unsettling precedent, but just because something is technically possible does not mean that it's remotely likely or worth getting worked up over.