Australians are in favour of the British Government's recent move to broaden the definition of terrorism to include computer hacking and believe cyber-terrorists should be prosecuted accordingly, according to a ZDNet survey.
Hackers have become terrorists under UK law following the passage of The Terrorism Act 2000, which recognises the new threat from cyber-terrorists for the first time.
Under the Act, the definition of terrorism includes those actions that "seriously interfere with or seriously disrupt an electronic system" and only when they are "designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public," ZDNet UK reported.
Over half of 600 Australian ZDNet readers questioned in a recent survey said they thought that Australia should follow the UK's lead and catch out computer hackers.
However, civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) said it would be concerned about the way in which any such legislation would be written.
The problem lies in the definition of what's hacking and what's cracking, according to EFA executive director Irene Graham said.
"We [EFA] support the view that there needs to be legislation in place that makes interfering with other people's Web sites illegal," Graham said. "At the end of the day it really comes down to intent."
EFA said it supports the view that cracking is illegal where its done with malicious intent as distinct from well intentioned hacking - where people are testing to see if certain systems are secure.
"Any such legislation in Australia would have to be carefully drafted so it didn't have unintended consequences," Graham said.
