Computer cases are built on data, and data can be misread. Before you answer questions or hand over a device, talk to a lawyer who owned a technology company before he practiced law.
Call 904-383-7448Florida prosecutes computer offenses under chapter 815, Florida Statutes, the Florida Computer Crimes Act. The Act defines its terms in section 815.03, reaches offenses against intellectual property in section 815.04, and criminalizes unauthorized access to computers, systems, and networks in section 815.06.
An IP address, a login record, or a recovered file can look damning until someone who understands the technology asks how it was collected and what it actually proves. If you have been charged or investigated, call 904-383-7448 before you talk to anyone else.
The Florida Computer Crimes Act is chapter 815. It opens with definitions in section 815.03, words like computer, network, access, and data that the rest of the chapter depends on. It then sets out offenses against intellectual property in section 815.04, which covers willfully and without authorization destroying, taking, or disclosing data, programs, or supporting documentation. The provision people are charged under most often is section 815.06, unauthorized access to a computer, system, or network. The grade of that offense rises with what the access was used to do.
Charges under chapter 815 rarely travel alone. Identity theft, formally criminal use of personal identification information under section 817.568, often rides along when stolen credentials or personal data are involved. So does unlawful interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications under section 934.03 when the State alleges someone captured messages or calls. Certain internet offenses, including transmission of harmful material and online solicitation, fall under section 847.0135, and cyberstalking is charged under section 784.048. Each statute carries its own elements, and each element is a place where the State's case can come apart.
The State's theory in a computer case usually rests on a chain: this account, on this device, at this address, did this thing. Every link in that chain can break. An IP address identifies a connection, not a person, and home networks are shared by families, roommates, and guests, sometimes by strangers when the network is left open. Dynamic addressing reassigns those numbers from one customer to the next. Malware turns innocent machines into tools that act without their owner's knowledge. Logs can be incomplete, misdated, or misread. The question is never just what the data shows. It is whether the data shows what the State claims, and whether it was preserved and examined the right way.
Digital forensics is a method, not a verdict. The reliability of that method, how an image was taken, how a hash was verified, how an examiner reached a conclusion, is open to scrutiny. When the method is sound, that matters. When it is not, that matters more. This is the same scrutiny applied to any machine-produced evidence, the subject of the page on challenging scientific evidence.
Before he practiced law, Graham Syfert owned a technology company, and he is a member of the Technology Law Section of the Georgia Bar. He has spent his career on cases where the evidence is digital, and he earned national attention for drafting defense forms used by ordinary people caught up in mass internet, or bittorrent, litigation. That fluency with the technology is what a computer case demands, because the State's forensic conclusions are only as good as the methods behind them. A lawyer who can read a log file, question an extraction, and explain to a jury why an IP address is not a fingerprint is doing the work the case actually requires.
Computer cases are also search cases. Phones and laptops hold more private information than any place a person used to keep their papers, and the law that governs searching them is still catching up. Whether the warrant was supported by probable cause, whether the search stayed within the warrant's scope, and whether the device was lawfully accessed at all are constitutional questions that can decide the outcome. A search that overreaches can put the evidence it produced beyond the State's reach. These questions get raised early, in writing, before they are lost.
The most damaging moments in a computer case often come before any arrest. A person agrees to an interview, consents to a search of a phone, or tries to explain away a file, and in doing so hands the State the very evidence it lacked. The right move is almost always the quiet one. You are not required to consent to a search of your devices, and you are not required to answer questions. Politely declining and calling a lawyer is not an admission of anything. It is the ordinary, sensible response to being investigated.
If a detective has called, if a warrant was served, or if your equipment has been seized, the time to build a defense is now, while the records are fresh and the State's paperwork can still be tested. Call 904-383-7448 or email graham@syfert.com.
Yes. Section 815.06 reaches accessing a computer or network without authorization, separate from any further harm. The central fight is usually whether the access was actually unauthorized in the first place.
An IP address is a starting point, not a fingerprint. It identifies a connection that may be shared, dynamic, spoofed, or compromised by malware. Tying that connection to a particular person is a separate question the State still has to answer.
Only within the limits of the Fourth Amendment. The validity of the warrant, whether the search exceeded its scope, and whether any exception applied are all open to challenge. A search that goes too far can take the evidence it produced off the table.
Because these cases are won and lost on how digital evidence was gathered and interpreted. Graham Syfert owned a technology company before he became a lawyer and sits on the Georgia Bar's Technology Law Section. He can test the State's forensic work in ways that matter to the result.
The call is free and confidential. Whether it is a traffic citation or a felony, the sooner a defense begins, the more can be done. Graham W. Syfert answers his own phone.
Call 904-383-7448Graham W. Syfert, Esq., P.A. · Jacksonville, Florida
Serving Duval, Clay, Nassau, and St. Johns Counties