Honestly if you do try that, I think the legal system would be right to prosecute you for it. "The law is immoral" is not a legal defense against "You knowingly disrupted a law-enforcement IT system."

There are multiple valid pushbacks against an immoral law:

1. Try to educate and reform the lawmakers. 2. Create a situation to bring out the absurd.

2 is often easier than 1 for the common man and has been used in many past revolutions.

Agreed, but there are no legal defenses against having done 2.

Civil disobedience requires breaking the law. With that comes the possibility of being legally prosecuted. Civil disobedience requires accepting that. And in fact, a large part of the effectiveness of civil disobedience comes from the fact that people accept the risk of arrest.

Just in case any readers are taking the above comment seriously, there is no modern legal system anywhere that allows exceptions based on the above. It is absurd nonsense.

I would encourage you to study peaceful revolutions (e.g. Mahatma Gandhi). Protestors protested against unjust laws by filling up the prisons. One can't be afraid to lose money or time when taking a moral stance. You are ofcourse doing this at great personal expense because you believe you are correct, not for external praise or glory.

Back up a moment, this is suggesting emailing a zip bomb[to yourself or an account you know will not open it.] I believe showing intent is a separate issue.

I mean, the above said valid, not legal. I've seen the word valid used more often to mean ethical than legal, so I think it's still accurate.

3. Jury nullification.

I probably agree that jury nullification is a "valid" pushback, based on my ethics and based on my limited understanding of the U.S. Constitution.

But do we know of any situations where it's actually worked? My impression is that judges for some reason fight hard against its use by defendants.

I think, back in the day, it was used to get away with lynchings. Not the best example, because laws against lynchings were actually also morally correct.

I don't know of any recent examples.

There are many reasons you could legitimately hold a drive with a zip bomb; maybe you're researching them for security? Maybe you collect interesting examples to teach the concept?

(Note: this doesn't mean you should go on record with such a defense without an attorney present, just saying why it shouldn't legally be regarded as malicious without a lot of other evidence.)

And you will risk spending a fortune and having your life ruined if they decide to test your explanations at the sharp end of a criminal charge.

It would be interesting to see the legal defense of what constitutes "knowingly" disrupting it.

For example, if I put a zip bomb on all my emails regardless of the border security but just as a general security measure, would that make me culpable if it wasn't targeted?

All hypothetical of course, because there's other hurdles to that as well like being flagged as spam in every day use.

My concern is more that a “criminal mischief” sort of misdemeanor being classified instead as some kind of terrorism.

Ah, ok. I can see that much.

A “zip bomb” can be merely a very efficiently compressed file. That sound like a crime to you?

The law works by judging intent, not by "actualllly technically i am correct here".

And how would you prove intent? It might be easy to prove if it's an usb drive with only a zip bomb. But what if it's on a 8TB external hard drive, with a bunch of random stuff (research papers, movies, podcasts, etc), placed inside a folder called "DoS examples" with a bunch of other malformed files as well?

>And how would you prove intent?

They don't have to prove it, in the sense that you prove a mathematical proof.

They just need to agree you had that intent.

Isn't the American legal system the one where that kind of argument actually has weight? Why so many cases are thrown out on technicalities and litigation costs are so high.

A kitchen knife is just a tool for cutting meat, does that sound like a crime to you?

Depends very much on what is being cut, in what context, and why. Cutting chicken fillets in a kitchen to cook dinner? No. Cutting a human on the street whilst screaming 'die you bitch' probably yes.

Its not about the tool, its about how you use it.

Because we're talking here about a file that one might possess within one's personal effects and papers--a file, on a PC, with no desire whatsoever to share it with anyone--the comparison to waving a knife around while screaming threats, or forcing a malicious file into a server, seems more than a little thin. Where is the motive? Where is the criminal frame of mind?

Remember, piping /dev/zero to a compression routine for a few seconds, out of curiosity or testing a shell script or whatever, could create a file that might throw a wrench into poorly-built works.

How did I know Person X sent me a, a "zip bomb"? I haven't opened their email yet. Why would they do a nasty thing like that?

I’m allowed to have zip bombs on my own USB drives.

Yes, and if you suspect someone is going to legally try unzipping it, you are probably legally required to inform them that it does contain a zip bomb.

And if you have the zip bomb on the USB drive with the intention to damage a law enforcement system, things change.

Just like you are allowed to have a gun, but you can't walk into a random place carrying a gun.

I mean, some hypothetical nasty terrorist could do a drop somewhere along the border, where they presumably don't have camera's.

I'm sure that the diligent border patrol protecting us would find it eventually.