with someone so childish and malicious, but lawyers make money because people like that are all over the place. Say one of your windows in the place you live has a broken lock. Would I then be justified in breaking into your house/apartment? I wouldn't suffer any ramifications, right? It's neither illegal nor unethical, right? You can be prosecuted for getting into someone's e-mail without their permission even if you just use the password. The means of access, which is what your analogy deals with, is legally irrelevant. and, 2) your analogy is completely silent on the fact that TF obtained, without permission, private correspondences containing sensitive information and, in fact, he still has those. The club analogy really doesn't handle any important points. I do not know. It could be argued that until the owner do not take away the authorization (key, password, whatever) you are still authorized. And if you are authorized and you did not sign any contract, those emails are yours to do what you want. I am not saying you are wrong, just that to me does not look so clear cut. The admins there went beyond incompetence, they really screwed this up. Nope. They removed him. He was aware he was removed, he intentionally tried to get in. From the perspective of the law, all that matters is that his permission was revoked, not how difficult it was for him to get back in. Those e-mails he obtained after his permission was revoked are