The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced partly in response to the decision in R v Gold & Schifreen (1988) 1 AC 1063 (see below). Critics of the bill complained that it was introduced hastily and was poorly thought out. Intention, they said, was often difficult to prove, and that the bill inadequately differentiated "joyriding" hackers like Gold and Schifreen from serious computer criminals. The Act has nonetheless become a model from which several other countries, including Canada and the Republic of Ireland, have drawn inspiration when subsequently drafting their own information security laws, as it is seen "as a robust and flexible piece of legislation in terms of dealing with cybercrime”. Several amendments have been passed to keep the Act up to date. R v Gold & Schifreen Robert Schifreen and Stephen Gold, using conventional home computers and modems in late 1984 and early 1985, gained unauthorised access to British Telecom's Prestel interactive viewdata service. While at a trade show, Schifreen, by doing what latterly became known as shoulder surfing, had observed the password of a Prestel engineer. The engineer's username was 22222222 and the password used was 1234. This later gave rise to accusations that British Telecom (BT) had not taken security seriously. Armed with this information, the pair explored the system, even gaining access to the personal message box of Prince Philip. Prestel installed monitors on the suspect accounts and passed information thus obtained to the police. The pair were charged under section 1 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 with defrauding BT by manufacturing a "false instrument", namely the internal condition of BT's equipment after it had processed Gold's eavesdropped password. Tried at Southwark Crown Court, they were convicted on specimen charges (five against Schifreen, four against Gold) and fined, respectively, £750 and £600. Although the fines imposed were modest, they elected to appeal to the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal. Their counsel cited the lack of evidence showing the two had attempted to obtain material gain from their exploits, and claimed that the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act had been misapplied to their conduct. They were acquitted by the Lord Justice Lane, but the prosecution appealed to the House of Lords. In 1988, the Lords upheld the acquittal. Lord Justice Brandon said: The Law Lords' ruling led many legal scholars to believe that hacking