Code as Conduct: People v. Versaggi & The Birth of Computer Tampering Law

Can you commit criminal computer tampering without ever changing a single byte of code? In November of 1986, an off-duty technician dialed into the private telecommunications network of the Eastman Kodak Corporation from his home terminal. Within minutes, phone service went dark across a 20,000-acre industrial complex, severing internal communications and silencing emergency 911 lines. When prosecutors charged him with felony computer tampering under New York's newly enacted Penal Law Article 156, the defense made an extraordinary claim: not a single byte of code on disk had been altered, deleted, or corrupted. He had merely executed the system's own built-in administrative commands. In this episode of reWandt, Professor Adam Scott Wandt examines the landmark New York Court of Appeals decision People v. Versaggi, 83 N.Y.2d 123 (1994). We unpack how the court defined software not as static storage on disk, but as dynamic conduct in execution. Explore how Versaggi's dial-up sabotage of Northern Telecom SL-100 switches exposed the inadequacy of traditional property laws, led to the birth of modern computer tampering jurisprudence, and established the legal armor protecting the critical infrastructure—from power grids to 911 dispatch—that our everyday modern lives depend on. Explore more deep dives at https://reWandt.com #reWandt #CyberLaw #DigitalForensics