I ran across two stories just now that are just amazing. First, let's have a look at this Boing Boing story about a web "intrusion". A UK guy donates money to a disaster relief, and then thinks maybe he's gotten scammed by a phishing thing. So - using only his browser and the keyboard, he tries a couple of things - and gets convicted of hacking for his trouble:

Stephen de Vries sez, "The details of this case are important to understand exactly how absurd the verdict was. What Daniel actually did to 'knock on the door' was to insert a ../../../ character sequence into the web address and a single quote into the credit card field - THROUGH HIS BROWSER. He did not use any attack 'tools' or 'probes' other than Internet Explorer. Furthermore, typing these sequences into a browser does not an attack make - it only proves that a website may be vulnerable. It takes a hell of a lot more effort to actually gain any form of unauthorized access to the site. Daniel did none of this, he only typed the sequences and watched the responses

I wouldn't put it past a US judge to have no clue either - it's all too easy for a well funded lawyer to paint scare quotes around this sort of thing, and exploit the lack of knowledge of a judge and/or jury. Next, I ran across some more stupidity from the RIAA (what a shocker):

The record industry may next aim its legal guns at satellite radio over a dispute involving new portable players that let listeners record and store songs, an analyst and industry sources said Wednesday

I guess the tape recorder is something these clowns haven't heard of. Hey stupid execs: I have a news flash for you - I was recording songs off the radio back in the late 60's, when I was under 10. It's not like this is a new thing, you half-wits.

I swear, the need for a massive cluestick gets bigger every day...