Malayan Law Journal Articles/2018/Volume 3/Malware and The Law of Deception in Malaysia [2018] 3 MLJ lxxxvi Malayan Law Journal Articles 2018
MALWARE AND THE LAW OF DECEPTION IN MALAYSIA
Associate Professor Dr. Rizal Rahman Lecturer Faculty of Law Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Email:
[email protected] ABSTRACT Considering the recent development of computers at the brink of passing the Turing's test of intelligence, shall the “cheating” provision in the Malaysian Penal Code be reinterpreted to handle every malware related deception cases? This article seeks to address the need of flexibility that can be adopted in the Penal Code. Keywords:
malware, deception, malaysia, law
INTRODUCTION The questions as to whether the Malaysian Penal Code offence of “cheating” would be able to survive computer technology have been dealt with differently in previous literature. This was mainly due to the fear that cybercrimes were something new, and thus a separate law was needed to handle them. Despite the fact that the Malaysian Computer Crimes Act 1997 was passed to handle cybercrimes, criticisms have been lodged against it on the ground of its lack of comprehensiveness and, in pursuance of the criticisms, suggestions have been made to amend its provisions. This however brings the legal community back to the cat-and-mouse game. If laws are to be constantly amended to suit technology, the need would be endless. When recent progress of technology contributes to advanced artificial intelligence in computers, is it wise to leave the old dilemma of the incompatible application of the law of deception between man and machine and continue resorting to the Computer Crimes Act, when current technology suggests that there is a potential alternative solution? If the answer is yes, the legal community would continue to be in the perpetual cat-andmouse game. It would not be possible to find an ideal way to reason and respond legally with technology, as criminals would devise new ways, rendering the amended laws obsolete. At the end of the day, there would just be a wasting of taxpayers' money and large amount of time debating and passing new laws. Visit http://www.lexis.com to read the rest of the article.
