This morning Click, the BBC’s “magazine” programme about technology proudly announced it had created its own botnet. In a new twist on “allegedly” (an infamous phrase used to skirt libel laws on Have I Got News For You and other satirical programmes) Click believe they’re legal because

If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law.

But our purpose was to demonstrate botnets' collective power when in the hands of criminals.

Tosh. The Computer Misuse Act (1990) states that deliberately obtaining access is sufficient to be charged with an offense. Section 1 states

A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;

(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and

(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.

Having just seen the programme it gets better. They used the botnet to spam two email accounts, one on gmail and one of hotmail. So they used a botnet to attack commercial services owned by others …

Teehee. Hang them high!