Note: this is a story from 2005.

He was found guilty not because he used a non-standard browser, but because after he donated the money, he ran some pretty trivial "security tests" on the site, like attempting to access /../../..

http://www.zdnet.com/tsunami-appeal-site-hacker-found-guilty...

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/008118.html

This is quite old news from 2005.

The man in question donated to the tsunami fund, didn't see a confirmation page, and fearing a phising scam, ran a couple of security tests against the site. Total fine: 400 GBP plus 600 GBP costs:

http://www.zdnet.com/tsunami-appeal-site-hacker-found-guilty...

I haven't been able to found any details about what "security tests" were run against the site, but the UK's computer misuse act appears to be quite clear about it: if you're not authorised to access something, you've broken the law.

Somehow, I think there's more to this story. I know that I sometimes play with a site's URL parameters, especially if I'm going to be giving them my credit card information and it looks like they're doing something non-standard or risky.

Of course, even with that caveat, criminalizing this sort of 'hacking' (or even calling it such) is absolutely absurd.

There is a (2005) missing in the title.