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From: nickless@flash.ras.anl.gov (Bill Nickless)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Crackers: Innocent and Misunderstood, Says Mr. Kapor
Message-ID: <8533@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 90 14:18:10 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 405, Message 3 of 6


I can't believe it.  Our Moderator writes that Mitchell Kapor, in
offering to help some defendants in a court of law, is deserving of a
boycott against his well-designed and written software package.

Whether or not Mr. Kapor agrees with the actions of the people he
defends should not be an issue.  I have worked for a legal aid
society, funded primarily by the United Way.  Most of their casework
involved defending homemakers who were being divorced by their
breadwinning spouses and were in danger of losing everything,
including their children.  This is not because they were right or
wrong, it was because they didn't have the money to fight the spouse
with a job to pay the attornies.

I believe Mr. Kapor has seen that there are some dangers inherent in
the government's tactics in Operation Sun Devil.  These dangers
include the lack of common carrier protections for electronic mail and
bulletin board operators.  He has been (moderately :-) ) successful
with 1-2-3 and would like to use some of his well-earned resources to
ensure that the nationwide infrastructure of electronic mail and
bulletin boards is not horribly disrupted, especially in a court case
where the defendants do not have sufficient financial resources to
counter the government's nearly infinite capability to pursue the
matter.

Whether or not the defendants did anything wrong should be irrelevant
to this discussion.  That is for the courts to decide.  Mr. Kapor is
simply trying to ensure that these defendants receive a fair trial.

Bill Nickless


[Moderator's Note: He said nothing at all in the {Washington Post}
article about 'helping them get a fair trial' ... he said they did not
belong on trial at all!  Go back and read the article again. And
whether or not they 'did anything wrong' is most certainly relevant to
this discussion. It is what this whole discussion is about: whether or
not you can take activities like cracking and twist it around into a
wholesome, legitimate activity as Mr. Kapor suggests.  PT]