At first I thought this was spam, but then I saw Clint's name on it...
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) wrote:
>
> How would YOU feel if someone broke into your computer system and took
> YOUR files to do whatever he felt like with? Or hacked your voicemail
> system and listened to your messages?
> ...
> If your name, DOB, and SSN are ANYWHERE on your computer, a hacker can
> steal your identity.
> ...
> People who break into computers are criminals.
> People who launch DDOS attacks are criminals.
Honestly, you're a little too paranoid. I think that there certainly is a
grey area in which lie the practices of 'breaking into' systems, launching
DDOS attacks, etc. Most activities like that probably ought to be illegal
in some way; in today's world, one cannot subscribe completely to the
belief that all (h|cr)ackers follow an ethic that forbids damage to
others. However, it is equally wrong to assume that all (h|cr)ackers will
do damage, that the damages are actually as high as have been assessed in
past cases, and that current computer crime laws are just.
The problem with people getting paranoid (e.g., fearing Mitnick could
start a nuclear holocaust from a payphone) is that it causes opressive law
to be generated. What we're seeing now is not only law that punishes (at
an unusual severity) the actual act of 'breaking in', but law (e.g., the
DMCA) which forbids one to know how to do so or even to *tell* others how
to do so. It scares me that there is any debate over the
constitutionality of such laws.
It's really weird. You can go to a number of sites and learn about the
Teller-Ulam Configuration and other aspects of how to build a hydrogen
bomb, but... finding out how to de-ROT13 your DVDs? Sorry buddy, that's
illegal.
> Kevin Mitnick is a CONVICTED criminal, and has ADMITTED criminal
> behaviour. I don't get teary-eyed thinking about the time he spent in
> prison before the trial. He was a proven flight risk (he ran away
> once, and hid out in Denver).
Yeah, Kevin did some stupid stuff, and he should expect to be punished for
it. The problem here is that what he got was just a little (ok,
extremely) 'unconstitutional'.
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss_at_subatomix.com
Received on Thu Jul 26 2001 - 21:30:05 BST