The BBC bought and used a botnet which hijacked a number of vulnerable PCs to send email to several test accounts, with the blessing of security firm PrevX, in order to make an edition of BBC Click (the fact that the Beeb calls this their flagship technology programme yet it’s only available on BBC News or at stupidly early times, in highlight form, on BBC1 is another issue).

A technology lawyer believes the BBC broke the law even thought the Corporation (which we law-abiding Brits fund to the tune of £140 each per year and rising) didn’t do it with any malicious intent.

Straun Robertson claims, “It does not matter that the emails were sent to the BBC’s own accounts and criminal intent is not necessary to establish an offence of unauthorised access to a computer,” he adds.

“The Act requires that a computer has been made to perform a function with intent to secure access to any program or data on the computer.

“Using the botnet to send an email is likely to satisfy that requirement. It also requires that the access is unauthorised – which the BBC appears to acknowledge.”

It’s interesting that security firm PrevX gave their blessing to the experiments, even though (reportedly) most security software companies won’t mess around with computers even if they are infected.

I doubt anything will happen, but remember if you live in Britain you’ve helped to fund this little experiment.