back to article Man cuffed over 'cycling cheat' email hack

A man suspected of hacking into the emails of controversial Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen in a bid to look for dirt has been arrested in Denmark. The 30-year suspect, who can't be named for legal reasons, allegedly broke into Rasmussen's account in a hunt for evidence of his whereabouts at the time of missed drug tests. The …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    30-year suspect...

    30-year suspect.... Wow, I guess they were keeping their eyes on him for a long time before nabbing him...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hacking?

    "They seized computers and charged the suspect with computer hacking offences, punishable on conviction by up to 18 months imprisonment"

    How does guessing someone's password count as hacking?

    short of a brute force attack, this sounds like the riders fault for having a weak password.

  3. Rolf Howarth

    Re: hacking?

    "How does guessing someone's password count as hacking?"

    In exactly the same way that only gently kicking open a flimsy locked door counts as breaking and entering.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How guessing someone's password counts as hacking.

    Because it's unauthorised access. If you have to guess the password, that means you can't have been authorised to access whatever facility is protected by that password - if you had been, you'd know the password. QED.

  5. Dillon Pyron

    Unlocked door

    If I leave my door unlocked, does that mean that you didn't enter illegally? For that matter, if I leave the key under the doormat and you use it, does that mean you didn't enter illegally? Both of these are considered settled law in the US. And the answer to both is no. If you enter without invitation or permission, it's illegal.

  6. Matthew Anderson

    uh?

    Unauthorised access is not hacking you dofus... I would explain more, but cant be bothered. So for the uneducated and stupid, follow this link.

    http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=definition+of+hacking&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

    Ta..

  7. Andy Bright

    Trespass

    Trespassing through an unlocked door (no password) or breaking and entering are both illegal to be sure - but in most places trespass is considered a much lower crime. Even so, unfortunately for the trespasser, many US counties trespass is considered sufficient to allow the owner of the property to open fire.

    Hacking in of itself shouldn't be a very serious crime either, but in many countries, it is a crime. I'll give you the punishments are harsh - but if you didn't know breaking into someone's system was illegal, you're not keeping yourself very up-to-date on current affairs. And that's all hacking is - it's the act of breaking into a system without authorization. The system can be a computer, a network or just a telephone exchange. What hacking is not is the act of damaging the system after you've broken in. Many hackers break into networks without any malicious intent - but just as pot smokers complain they're harming no one by forgetting what they were saying half way through a sentence, claiming curiosity won't help much. Just ask that McKinnon bloke. And not agreeing with the law will actually be very harmful if you come up against your typical judge - who could put you away for contempt just for saying that.

    What you do after hacking is also relevant. This guy tried to take someone's very personal documentation and sell it to a newspaper. It was very much breaking and entering for the purpose of stealing. Whether the account's owner cheated at a bike race is neither here nor there.

    Hopefully this thief goes away for a long time. I'll admit I'd be pissed off if someone hacked into my email account. I would not, however, want or expect more than a fine (or even a warning) if that's all they did. If they took my personal information and sold it on the other hand, I'd want the judge to throw the book at them.

  8. Anders Jensen

    extremly illegal

    it is, in denmark, extremly illegal to read other peoples mail, you can get your girlfriend jailed if she reads your sms'es without your premission and such, that's why he can be punished so hard, it isnt because he hacked him, it's because he read his mail

  9. andy

    climbs like a gazelle, buts fails public accountability test

    Well done John, good summary of Rasmussen's tour. No IT angle in my comment, but it is Friday!

  10. Jon

    Theft

    What stupid comments "Hacking in of itself shouldn't be a very serious crime either".. why??? You're trying to legitimise what you see as being cool like a grafitti artist saying he was only painting pictures, and then you want to throw the book at theives.

    In every sense of the word, hacking is theft and should be treated as such. In any country that's illegal and has been for centries, in Iran you'll get hung for it, so why is anyone surprised that this guy, who broke into "something" and "stole" something that didn't belong to him. In this instance, the thing that was stolen was information.. And in todays world we SHOULD be treating cyber crime with as much force as we do off-net crimes.. Companies lose millions each year through cybercrime, and you don't think it's the fat cats at the top that lose their bonuses over it do you? No, they're off to play golf because that's "real work" to them, it's us poor guys in the IT department that lose ourjobs, see ourworkload double and have to work longer hours because some idiot wants to make a quick buck..

    Come on guys, treat other people with the respect you'd like to be treated with, punish theives as theives, and maybe, just maybe, this world will survive long enough to make it to the end of this century without descending into anarchy..

  11. Dan

    What we really want to know...

    is whether there was anything incriminating in there! I'm guessing there must have been something to justify trying to sell it to the media. The tour was turning into a farce over these spats, and I doubt that Contador feels like a winner, despite taking the title.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Deserved it

    What an idiot for trying to profit from this. He should have just posted the mailbox anonymously all over the 'net.

  13. Morten Ranulf Clausen

    Luckily hacking isn't illegal here in Denmark...

    ...but unlawful access to areas reasonably expected to be private is (and the law doesn't really discern between physical and virtual access - a rare example of foresight in lawmaking). I agree with Matt that hacking is something quite different than being an *ss but then again I'm old and like to call myself a hacker... ;-) Check the Jargon File.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Uh?

    Matthew Anderson said: "Unauthorised access is not hacking you dofus... I would explain more, but cant be bothered. So for the uneducated and stupid, follow this link."

    The link he gave to Google provided a definition of: 'Unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network.'

    Use... Access... Bypass security mechanisms... Access... There's a theme! Perhaps checking search results before you post them is a good idea? ;)

  15. Steve

    @Matthew Anderson

    "Unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network.

    www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/compsecurity/glossary.html"

    That's the first link that comes up from your search link.

    You mentioned something about "uneducated and stupid" ?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To Matt Anderson....

    Taken from the small bit of text of the first result of your google Link....

    "Unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network."

    Check your links first doofus!!

    However - In your defence the term "hacker" is actually incorrectly used throughout most of the Joe Public domain, so I think I understand where you were trying to be coming from....

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