2 ms·

> odd edge cases (which it turns out, are common) If they're common, they're not edge cases. The whole point of having prosecutorial discretion for edge cases

by pdonis 4y ago

> odd edge cases (which it turns out, are common) If they're common, they're not edge cases. The whole point of having prosecutorial discretion for edge cases is that such cases should be extremely rare. If they turn out to be common, it's a sign that the whole system of law has gotten out of hand, not that some boundaries need to be tweaked.

lazide 4y ago
Any rule applied across 300 million people is going to have edge cases regularly - maybe even weekly or monthly - that need to be investigated and decided on. That makes it ‘common’ but also not worthwhile to spend months updating the code on if they are each different issues.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Any rule applied across 300 million people is going to have edge cases regularly The rule against murder is applied across 300 million people and very rarely has edge cases. The same goes for the rule against fraud, which is more to the point for this discussion (see below). The problem is that most of the "rules" that are applied across 300 million people are not straightforward rules like the ones against murder or fraud, but micromanaging rules like the ones in the law that is the subject of this article. The law itself is silly: fraud is already a crime, why should fraud using a computer be any different from any other kind of fraud? If we just had the simple rule against fraud, it would be obvious that "white hat" security testing of computer systems is not fraud and is not a crime, and we wouldn't have all the edge cases that make enforcement of this law such a mess. The only reason the edge cases are so common is that the laws are not written to embody simple straightforward rules against obvious crimes that everybody can recognize; they are written to embody complex, byzantine rules that have evolved over time because people have the mistaken belief that giving more power to the government can solve problems. But actually, as the old joke about regular expressions goes, when people try to use the government to solve a problem, now they have two problems.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Huh? Murder and fraud have tons of weird edge cases! Most jurisdictions even have 3+ different definitions for murder alone (not to mention manslaughter) and a bunch of specialist lawyers to figure it out, and a bunch more lawyers to argue about technicalities!
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > Most jurisdictions even have 3+ different definitions for murder alone In other words, most jurisdictions can't just leave it at a simple common law definition of murder; for example: "At common law, murder was defined as killing another human being with malice aforethought." [1] This is not a matter of edge cases. It's a matter of the legal system getting out of hand even for what should be basic common law crimes. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder
      - lazide 4y ago
        Common law uses case law for precedent, which is insanely complicated and requires years of study and decades of active practice to not screw up badly. That example is not what you think it is.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The rule against murder is applied across 300 million people and very rarely has edge cases. Murder has, like tons of edge cases, as reviewing almost any jurisdiction’s criminal homicide laws will reveal. (Here's California's, for reference) https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&division=&title=8.&part=1.&chapter=1.&article https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x... > The same goes for the rule against fraud That's not true of either civil or criminal fraud (which generally have quite different sets of edge cases.)
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > Murder has, like tons of edge cases, as reviewing almost any jurisdiction’s criminal homicide laws will reveal. In other words, you're saying that even what should be fairly simple laws have been overcomplicated by our byzantine legal system, so that prosecutorial discretion can be abused even for them. I don't disagree, but I don't see how it contradicts my basic point.

by pdonis 4y ago

lazide 4y ago

Any rule applied across 300 million people is going to have edge cases regularly - maybe even weekly or monthly - that need to be investigated and decided on. That makes it ‘common’ but also not worthwhile to spend months updating the code on if they are each different issues.

pdonis 4y ago
> Any rule applied across 300 million people is going to have edge cases regularly The rule against murder is applied across 300 million people and very rarely has edge cases. The same goes for the rule against fraud, which is more to the point for this discussion (see below). The problem is that most of the "rules" that are applied across 300 million people are not straightforward rules like the ones against murder or fraud, but micromanaging rules like the ones in the law that is the subject of this article. The law itself is silly: fraud is already a crime, why should fraud using a computer be any different from any other kind of fraud? If we just had the simple rule against fraud, it would be obvious that "white hat" security testing of computer systems is not fraud and is not a crime, and we wouldn't have all the edge cases that make enforcement of this law such a mess. The only reason the edge cases are so common is that the laws are not written to embody simple straightforward rules against obvious crimes that everybody can recognize; they are written to embody complex, byzantine rules that have evolved over time because people have the mistaken belief that giving more power to the government can solve problems. But actually, as the old joke about regular expressions goes, when people try to use the government to solve a problem, now they have two problems.
- lazide 4y ago
  Huh? Murder and fraud have tons of weird edge cases! Most jurisdictions even have 3+ different definitions for murder alone (not to mention manslaughter) and a bunch of specialist lawyers to figure it out, and a bunch more lawyers to argue about technicalities!
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Most jurisdictions even have 3+ different definitions for murder alone In other words, most jurisdictions can't just leave it at a simple common law definition of murder; for example: "At common law, murder was defined as killing another human being with malice aforethought." [1] This is not a matter of edge cases. It's a matter of the legal system getting out of hand even for what should be basic common law crimes. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder
    - lazide 4y ago
      Common law uses case law for precedent, which is insanely complicated and requires years of study and decades of active practice to not screw up badly. That example is not what you think it is.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The rule against murder is applied across 300 million people and very rarely has edge cases. Murder has, like tons of edge cases, as reviewing almost any jurisdiction’s criminal homicide laws will reveal. (Here's California's, for reference) https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&division=&title=8.&part=1.&chapter=1.&article https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x... > The same goes for the rule against fraud That's not true of either civil or criminal fraud (which generally have quite different sets of edge cases.)
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Murder has, like tons of edge cases, as reviewing almost any jurisdiction’s criminal homicide laws will reveal. In other words, you're saying that even what should be fairly simple laws have been overcomplicated by our byzantine legal system, so that prosecutorial discretion can be abused even for them. I don't disagree, but I don't see how it contradicts my basic point.