Robert Jonathan Schifreen (born October 1963) is a former UK-based computer hacker and magazine editor, and the founder of IT security awareness training programme SecuritySmart.co.uk. He was the first person charged with illegally accessing a computer system, but was acquitted because there was no such specific criminal offence at the time. Later in life he became a computer security consultant, speaking at many conferences on information security and training banks, large companies and universities in the UK on IT security. In 2014 he began developing the software on which SecuritySmart runs from scratch which reached completion and product launch in June 2016.
Trial
He was arrested in 1985 for hacking into a
British Telecom
BT Group plc (trade name, trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is th ...
computer and accessing the
Telecom Gold
Telecom Gold (sometimes also known as BT Gold) was an early commercial electronic mail service launched by British Telecom in 1982. It was based on Prime minicomputers running Dialcom software under a customised version of PRIMOS. (ITT Dialcom ...
emails of
Prince Philip
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...
. As there was no specific law against hacking at this time, in June 1985 he became (together with his co-defendant,
Steve Gold
Stephen Gold (15 January 1956 – 12 January 2015) was a skilled hacker (computer security), hacker and journalist who in the mid-1980s was charged with, convicted and later acquitted of, 'uttering a forgery' in what became known to the popular pre ...
) one of the first two people to be charged under section 1 of the
Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981
The Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 (c 45) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which makes it illegal to make fake versions of many things, including legal documents, contracts, audio and visual recordings, and money of the Uni ...
with forgery which deceived a non-human target. When the case came to trial in April 1986, Schifreen was said to have used an unprotected top level account identified as "2222222222" with a password of "1234"; Schifreen was said to have admitted obtaining user passwords but denied doing so for personal gain and said that his activities prompted Prestel to increase security. On 24 April 1986 Schifreen was convicted on six counts of forgery and fined £750.
Appeal
Schifreen's appeal to the
Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
was heard by three judges including the
Lord Chief Justice
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...
,
Lord Lane
Geoffrey Dawson Lane, Baron Lane, (17 July 1918 – 22 August 2005) was a British Judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1980 to 1992. The later part of his term was marred by a succession of disputed convictions. Lane's criti ...
; judgment was given on 21 July 1987, and found that the use of a charge of forgery was inappropriate and that an application that the charges should be dismissed as giving no case to answer should succeed. The judgment expressed the hope that "the
Procrustean attempt to force the facts into the language of an Act not designed to fit them" would not be repeated.
['Hacking' into Prestel is not a Forgery Act offence" (Law Report), ''The Times'', 21 July 1987.]
Law Lords
The Crown then appealed to the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
(''R v Gold and Schifreen''
L 21 Apr 1988, but the appeal was turned down in April 1988. The Law Lords agreed that the "making of a false instrument", a key part of proving a forgery case, revolved around the production of a "memory segment" with false information; as the computer had created this rather than Schifreen himself, the computer had effectively "forged itself".
This case led to introduction of the
Computer Misuse Act 1990
The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced partly in response to the decision in ''R v Gold & Schifreen'' (1988) 1 AC 1063 (see below). Critics of the bill complained that it was introduced hastily ...
.
Later life
After his acquittal, Schifreen had to take a
judicial review
Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompat ...
action against the police for the return of his computers. For some years, Schifreen was the editor of ''
.EXE Magazine
''.EXE Magazine'' was a monthly computer software magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1986 to 2000.
History and profile
Founded in 1986 by Mark Adams, former co-founder of PR agency Text 100, .EXE (rhymes with 'not sexy' as the magazine ...
'', a magazine for programmers. '', his online name (shortened from the punning 'hex maniac'), was an active
CIX participant from the late 1980s, at a time when
online communities
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
were still a rare novelty.
Schifreen now lives in East Sussex working as an IT security trainer and web developer at the
University of Brighton
The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieve ...
and runs an IT security consultancy. He regularly speaks at conferences and writes articles for the computer press and other publications. In 2006,
John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...
published his book, ''Defeating the Hacker''.
References
External links
''R v Gold and Schifreen'' HL [19882 WLR 984, [1988">988">''R v Gold and Schifreen'' HL
[1988
2 WLR 984, [1988AC 1063, [1988] 2 All ER 186]
''R v Gold and Schifreen'' CADC
/nowiki> QB 1116">987
/nowiki> QB 1116
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schifreen, Robert
1963 births
People associated with computer security
Academics of the University of Brighton
Living people