The Cyber Privateer Code, Draft 02

Well, I've finally felt the need to modify The Cyber Privateer Code which I originally published on November 13, 2010 (you can click on the link to the right to see the original). It just seemed a real deal-killer to expect a licensing/bonding authority to authorize a cyber privateering raid if the penalty for making a mistake was one-hundred times the loss. So I changed the penalty to four times the loss (the original plus treble damages).  I also updated the code as my novel Daddy's Little Felons is about to become available on Amazon.com. Had to tie up a few loose ends.

Here's the current code, kind of like The Pirates' Code alluded to in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies:

The Cyber Privateer Code (draft 02):

1. Any unauthorized attempt to access your computer or phish your data access privileges constitutes a crime punishable by the looting of the attacker's assets by an authorized cyber privateer. All assets. Within 6 months of the attack.
2. If it is determined that the attacker is acting under explicit instructions from a larger organization or government, the assets of that organization or government are also forfeit to the extent that an authorized cyber privateer may confiscate them within a six month period of the original motivating attack. All assets.
3. The individual whose assets were seized by a cyber privateer—or the publicly and legally designated spokesperson for the organization or government whose assets were seized by the cyber privateer—has the "right of parley" with the head of the cyber privateering organization, such meeting to take place online in a two-way video conference, such conference to be publicly recorded by one or both parties and before the disposition of the booty but no later than 10 days from the confiscation.
4. Innocent victims whose assets are directly and mistakenly confiscated by cyber privateers (and whose funds are not returned within 10-days after the parley) shall be compensated in an amount equal to four times their loss, with interest accruing on the restitution amount at the rate of twelve percent per annum. This does not include victims of the cyber criminals, since they were already victimized.
5. Notifications and requests for parley must be unambiguously left by the cyber privateer so as to allow the right of parley to be exercised in a timely fashion.

I have also updated the Cyber Privateer Code on the website: www.CyberPrivateer.com.