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Mischief
 
 
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Mischief, in criminal law
Criminal law

The term criminal law, sometimes called penal law, refers to any of various bodies of rules in different jurisdictions whose common characteristic is the potential for unique and often severe impositions as punishment for failure to comply....
, is an offense against property
Property

Property is any physical or virtual entity that is ownership by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consumption, sell, Renting, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property....
 that does not involve conversion
Criminal conversion

Criminal conversion, in criminal law, is usually defined as the crime of exerting unauthorized use or control of someone else's property. It differs from theft in that it does not include the element of intending to deprive the owner of the possession of that property....
. It typically involves any damage
Property damage

Property damage is damage to or the destruction of public or private property, caused either by a person who is not its Ownership or by natural phenomena....
, defacement
Defacement (vandalism)

In common usage, to deface something refers to marking or removing the part of an object designed to hold the viewers' attention. Example acts of defacement could include scoring a book cover with a blade, splashing paint over a painting in a gallery, smashing the nose of a sculpted bust....
, alteration, or destruction of property
Property

Property is any physical or virtual entity that is ownership by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consumption, sell, Renting, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property....
. Common forms include vandalism
Vandalism

Vandalism is the behaviour attributed to the Vandals, by the Ancient Romes, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything Beauty or venerable....
, graffiti
Graffiti

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is sometimes regarded as a form of art and other times regarded as unsightly damage or unwanted....
, or some other destruction or defacement of property other than arson
Arson

Arson is the crime of deliberately and maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires caused by lightning for example....
. Governed by state law
State law

In the United States, state law is the law of each separate U.S. state, as passed by the State legislature . It exists in parallel, and sometimes in conflict with, United States federal law....
, criminal mischief is committed when a perpetrator, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, intentionally damages
Damages

In law, damages refer to the money paid or awarded to a claimant , pursuer or plaintiff following a successful claim in a lawsuit....
 property of another person, intentionally participates in the destruction
Destruction

Destruction is the act of damaging something beyond use or repair. It may also refer to:* Destruction , a German thrash metal band* Destruction , one of the Endless in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman...
 of property of another person, or participates in the reckless
Reckless

Reckless may refer to:In fiction:* Reckless , directed by Victor Fleming* Reckless , a 1951 Spanish film* Reckless , starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah...
 damage or destruction of property of another person.






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Mischief, in criminal law
Criminal law

The term criminal law, sometimes called penal law, refers to any of various bodies of rules in different jurisdictions whose common characteristic is the potential for unique and often severe impositions as punishment for failure to comply....
, is an offense against property
Property

Property is any physical or virtual entity that is ownership by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consumption, sell, Renting, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property....
 that does not involve conversion
Criminal conversion

Criminal conversion, in criminal law, is usually defined as the crime of exerting unauthorized use or control of someone else's property. It differs from theft in that it does not include the element of intending to deprive the owner of the possession of that property....
. It typically involves any damage
Property damage

Property damage is damage to or the destruction of public or private property, caused either by a person who is not its Ownership or by natural phenomena....
, defacement
Defacement (vandalism)

In common usage, to deface something refers to marking or removing the part of an object designed to hold the viewers' attention. Example acts of defacement could include scoring a book cover with a blade, splashing paint over a painting in a gallery, smashing the nose of a sculpted bust....
, alteration, or destruction of property
Property

Property is any physical or virtual entity that is ownership by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consumption, sell, Renting, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property....
. Common forms include vandalism
Vandalism

Vandalism is the behaviour attributed to the Vandals, by the Ancient Romes, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything Beauty or venerable....
, graffiti
Graffiti

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is sometimes regarded as a form of art and other times regarded as unsightly damage or unwanted....
, or some other destruction or defacement of property other than arson
Arson

Arson is the crime of deliberately and maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires caused by lightning for example....
. Governed by state law
State law

In the United States, state law is the law of each separate U.S. state, as passed by the State legislature . It exists in parallel, and sometimes in conflict with, United States federal law....
, criminal mischief is committed when a perpetrator, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, intentionally damages
Damages

In law, damages refer to the money paid or awarded to a claimant , pursuer or plaintiff following a successful claim in a lawsuit....
 property of another person, intentionally participates in the destruction
Destruction

Destruction is the act of damaging something beyond use or repair. It may also refer to:* Destruction , a German thrash metal band* Destruction , one of the Endless in Neil Gaiman's comic book series The Sandman...
 of property of another person, or participates in the reckless
Reckless

Reckless may refer to:In fiction:* Reckless , directed by Victor Fleming* Reckless , a 1951 Spanish film* Reckless , starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah...
 damage or destruction of property of another person. Criminal mischief is usually a misdemeanor
Misdemeanor

A misdemeanor, or misdemeanour, in many common law legal systems, is a "lesser" crime act. Misdemeanors are generally punishment much less severely than felony, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions ....
. The etymology
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 of the word comes from Old French
Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
 meschief, which means "misfortune,' from meschever, "to end badly." The term ‘mischief’ tends to minimize or play down the extent or seriousness of the violence
Violence

Violence is the expression of physical force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt. Variant uses of the term refer to the destruction of non-living objects ....
 often associated with the attacks.

In computer science
Computer science

Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems....
 and hacker jargon, mischief is a form of attack
Attack

Attack may refer to*a military strike, see military assault** first strike** Counterattack*a physical attack, see Strike **assault**Battery ...
 that clearly indicates the breach
Breach

Breach may refer to:...
 of the system and constitutes a form of injury
Injury

Injury or bodily injury is damage or harm caused to the structure or Purpose of the body caused by an outside wiktionary:agent or force, which may be physical or chemical....
 or an infringement
Infringement

Infringement, when used alone, has several possible meanings in the English language.In a legal context, an infringement refers to the violation of a law or a right....
 of rights, more specifically invasion of privacy
Invasion of privacy

United States privacy law embodies several different law concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information, publicizes him or her in a false light, or app...
, against which legal action can be taken to secure damages
Damages

In law, damages refer to the money paid or awarded to a claimant , pursuer or plaintiff following a successful claim in a lawsuit....
. Grey hat
Grey hat

A grey hat, in the hacker community, refers to a skilled Hacker who sometimes acts legally, sometimes in good will, and sometimes not. They are a hybrid between white hat and black hat hackers....
 hackers often use mischief as a way to signal security breaches to system administrators.

Mischief is also a way for a hacker to "prove" himself to others. As an overt demonstration
Demonstration

Demonstration may refer to:*Demonstration , a political rally or protest*Demonstration , conclusive mathematical proof*Scientific demonstration, a scientific experiment carried out for the purposes of illustrating principles, rather than for hypothesis testing or knowledge gathering...
 to other hackers of his skill in the use of force
Force

In physics, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity. Force has both Euclidean_vector#Length of a vector and Direction , making it a Vector quantity....
, these security breaches can be taken as a sign
Sign

A sign is an entity which signifies another entity. A natural sign is an entity which bears a causal relation to the signified entity, as thunder is a sign of storm....
 of criminal intent
Criminal intent

'Criminal intent' may refer to:* Intention , one of the three general classes of mens rea or "guilty mind" in criminal law* ...
 and may result in charges as serious as terrorism
Terrorism

Terrorism, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, is the systematic use of terror, "violent or destructive acts committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands." At present, there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism....
. In this context, terroristic threat
Threat

Threat of force in public international law is a situation between states described by Great Britain lawyer Ian Brownlie as:The 1969...
 involves a threat to commit violence (the computer attack) communicated with intent to cause significant harm
HARM

HARM may refer to :* AGM-88 HARM, a missile* Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum, a museum located in Creve Coeur, Missouri, United StatesH.A.R.M. may stand for :...
, inconvenience, or injury (the resulting breach) in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such harm, inconvenience, or injury. Brute force
Brute force

Brute force may refer to:* Brute-force search, a trivial computer problem-solving technique* Brute force attack, a method of defeating a cryptographic scheme by trying a large number of possibilities...
 is associated with hacker ‘mischief’.