Attorney at Law (https://linkedin.com/in/cristiandriga) with main practice areas in IT law, cybersecurity, cybercrime & electronic evidence in Romania.

Founder and director of the Cybercrime Research Centre Assoc. a non-profit organization developing awareness programs, specialists training and research programs aimed at connecting and bringing up to the same speed the two worlds: IT and the judicial system. Trainer for judges and prosecutors at dedicated seminars. Speaker at various conferences and events.

“Knock knock..” “Who’s there?” ..”The Law! Open up!”

Many of my friends and clients in the cybersecurity field tell me they try to avoid the areas which intersect with the law in their activity. It’s understandable. The law everywhere often seem to give, especially to IT people a degree of uncertainty and insecurity. This is especially true when you bring digital life cases to Courtroom. Many technically innocent or harmless activities in the IT field are often regarded as “problematic” and subject to “interpretation” or even “a crime” under the law and, naturally we want them to either pass undetected or we avoid them. If you are a technical person, the legal interpretation of a technical fact may often baffle you. On the opposite side, an obvious fact to you from the computer logs it is, on many occasions, not understood, neglected or even rejected by the judges.

• • Have you ever been astonished by the courts leaving cybercriminals free in cases which were clear to you from the technical point of view?
  • Were you outraged by heavy convictions in cases where technical activities were “innocent” to you from the technical facts?
  • Have you ever been tempted to start an ethical hacking activity by “praying”?

Let’s have a relaxed discussion about where is this doubt, uncertainty and sometimes fear coming from and more importantly, let’s take a look at what can be done to walk on more solid legal grounds in the area. Let’s ethically hack the law a bit.