Bad news – the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has announced that sharing passwords is a crime prosecutable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
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The decision means that millions of people who share passwords for services like Netflix are now recognised as “unwitting federal criminals.”
The decision came in the case of David Nosal, an employee at headhunter firm Korn/Ferry Internation. David left the firm in 2004 after being denied a promotion. He stayed on for a year as a contractor while simultaneously preparing to launch a competing firm, working alongside co-conspirators in the company.
Although all their computer access was revoked, they continued to access a Korn/Ferry candidate database, known as ‘Searcher’, using the login details of David’s former assistant, who was still with the firm.
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Well, I guess they’re going to have to build a few more billion jails around the world because if sharing your Netflix password is a federal crime, then every person on the planet is now a certified criminal. Everybody shares their Netflix passwords. That’s like the one kind thing we do for each other in a world where everyone hates everyone and everyone’s shooting each other.
Is there anything really to worry about though? Probably not. It’s a bit like laws with music/film piracy. Everyone does it but only about 1 in 500,000 people have ever got done for it. Can they come after you if they want? Yep. Will they? Unlikely.
To get a load of the SICK Netflix room some guy built in his shed, click HERE.
