Cyber-Graffiti, a violation of democratic manners?

I' ve heard, as I'm sure most people have, of various "cyber-crimes". But cyber-graffiti never hit me as a crime, mostly a nuisance. But it seems Jarkarta authorities take it seriously, and have sentenced a man to 6 months in prison.

Cyber-graffiti costs six months in slammer

The country's first defendant in a cyber crime, Dani Firmansyah, 25, was sentenced on Thursday to six months and 21 days imprisonment after he was found guilty of defacing the General Elections Commission (KPU) website in April.

Presiding judge Hamdi ruled that the defendant had caused much distress and had, he said, undermined the reputation of the country's Internet experts.

"We consider the defendant's statement that he did not know that hacking KPU's website was violating the law as an incriminating factor in the sentence," he told the courtroom at the Central Jakarta District Court.

However, the judge said, Dani had been very polite during the trial, and considering his young age and intellectualism, the panel of judges expected him to some day become an Internet expert.

The judges said despite Dani's stated motive that he wished to test the KPU's security systems, they said that a guilty verdict was necessary to serve as a warning to the public.

"This case should remind all of us that in executing democracy, people should not forget their manners," Hamdi added.

www.thejakartapost.com... 4&irec=6

A quick check of google got me no immediate hits (emphasize quick). So I am assuming there aren't many sentences for 'cyber-graffiti'. It would seem that over the last two or three years there has been an upsurge in cyber-laws, and thus in the amount of arrests. How exactly can the authorities affectively govern the internet? Say somebody tampered with a foreign site? Whose laws would he be prosecutable under?

The internets a can of worms, God help the men who try opening it



[edit on 24-12-2004 by Volksgeist]