News about the legal issues, courtesy of Wired.

The federal statute and copycat state laws prohibit accessing computers or a computer system without authorization, or in excess of authorization, and thereby obtaining information or causing damage.

What does it mean to access a networked computer? Any communication with that computer — even if it’s simply one system asking another “are you there?” — transmits data to the other machine. The cases say that e-mail, web surfing and port scanning all access computers. One court has even held that when I send an e-mail, not only am I accessing your e-mail server and your computer, but I’m also “accessing” every computer in between that helps transmit my message.