Yesterday, news broke that Japanese police took an 11-year-old girl into protective custody for violating the country’s computer laws. Today, it’s a 16-year-old boy.
The teenager is allegedly a self-styled hacker who illegally accessed another individual’s online game server and also wrote three gamers’ IDs and passwords on an internet forum. For that, Japanese police arrested him.
The recent crackdown comes after revisions to Japanese law that made it illegal to post people’s IDs and passwords online without permission.
他人のＩＤなど公開の１６歳逮捕…提供罪初適用 [Yahoo! Japan]
Photo: Supri Suharjoto/Shutterstock
11 year old? Maybe not, still really a child.
16 year old? Yes, good. There will be outcrys of, "so what? It's just a password for a game" but what if it wasn't, what if it was banking details? What if it was something more than a game? If this serves as little more than punishment for one person, full support. Taking out the fact that it's just a game, he has violated a law and should be held responsible.
Or take a different approach, hire him so he has a well paying job and does good things, instead throwing him into jail for life so early.
Actually, the commonly accepted age at which children know the difference between right and wrong is 8 years so they theoretically should be accountable for their actions. They both sound like they were well aware of what they were doing as well so it's just down to how the legal proceedings go. It's just like the 12 year old girl who got into a lawsuit with the RIAA for music swapping.
Commonly accepted by who? At 8 years old, children are still underdeveloped both mentally and emotionally and as such, still require direction from older role models
It says they arrested him, not they threw him into jail. We don't know the punishment only the crime so we can't make a judgement on it.
Personally I'd delete all his save games and characters.