Laws prohibiting trespass are based on ideas of clear physical boundaries. The existing structure for information crimes, such as transmitting prohibited or libelous material, is founded on the concept of discrete media with definite physical characteristics. This means a network owner or operator is either a publisher, distributor, broadcaster or common carrier located on the network. In the evolving cyberspace a perpetrator may be none of these and even may not be an authorized user. Legislation should carefully distinguish among deliberately malicious acts, carelessness and accidents.
Accidents can occur as a result of valid technical efforts.
Furthermore, the liability from publishing data that leads to negative impacts on the data user is a condition that must be considered. Suppose information is developed in a test mode and accidentally or maliciously released. An individual, unaware of the information's status, uses it and is harmed. This implies need for civil, as well as criminal, avenues for redress with appropriate scaling of consequences. An effective law would be sensitive to the nature of computer crime.