Sometimes things are going really bad. Even if you meant well, the effect of what you decided might have consequnces you never anticipated.

This is what seems to be the case for the law-makers in Germany these days. The new law forbids on a general basis unauthorized access to IT-systems, and all types of tools use for hacking is also forbidden.

Sounds good, right? Well it is not. The law will actually make it a crime to do the research necessary for the security companies to improve their products and understand an attack. So the situation might be that the good guys is also hurt by this. After all I thought unauthorized access to IT-systems already was forbidden, and no one really asked for permission to attack anyway.

Without the possibility to do constructive hacking, it will be very difficult to discover security flaws before they are exploited. This situation is so serious that a lot of security experts working in German security companies may leave the country. Or at least the threat to do so.

Even research in closed networks will be illegal, becasuse the tools used for this are covered by the law.

The worst part is that this might become an EU directive some day. This is a textbook example of good intention turning out to have the exact opposite effect.