The crime of distributed computing

David McOwen was working as a PC specialist at the state-run DeKalb Technical
Institute in 1998, when he learned about a project by the non-profit
organization distributed.net
that allowed computer users to donate their unused processing power to test the
RC5 encryption algorithm. Noticing that many of the machines he maintained on
the seven DeKalb campuses sat idle for long periods, McOwen installed
distributed.net clients at several of those locations while performing a Y2K
upgrade on the machines in 1999.


According to McOwen, during the
Christmas holidays in 1999 school administrators noticed that unused machines
were sending and receiving the distributed.net data -- about the equivalent of
one email a day. The school sent McOwen a letter of suspension in January of
2000, without specifying a grievance, and McOwen resigned shortly afterwards,
believing that he had put the incident behind him.


Instead, in June of
2001 McOwen was contacted by an investigator from the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation who informed him that he was the subject of an 18-month computer
crime investigation. In October, prosecutors from the Georgia state attorney
general's office charged McOwen with eight violations of Georgia's tough
computer crime law: one count of computer theft, and seven counts of computer
trespass -- one for each of the school offices where McOwen downloaded the
distributed.net client.


Each felony count carries a $50,000 fine and a
15-year possible prison term, for a 120 year maximum possible sentence. The
indictment also calls for restitution equal to the amount of money paid to state
workers to uninstall the programs from 500 PCs.