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From: bungia!chris@eecs.nwu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Crackers: Innocent and Misunderstood, Says Mr. Kapor
Message-ID: <8536@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 90 23:51:35 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 405, Message 6 of 6


In article <8473@accuvax.nwu.edu> you write:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 401, Message 5 of 13

[Moderator's Note: Quotes removed to conserve space. PT]

After all the discussion on this, I can't believe you have such a
bigoted, narrow-minded and short-sighted viewpoint!  I'm absolutely
astounded that you made such remarks, from many points of perspective.

For example, you seem to imply that Kapor is supporting the theft from
businesses, yet as we have seen, the Secret Service _ITSELF_ is guilty
of completely disrupting the business of Steve Jackson Games.  That
really makes Jenkins' remarks look like the self-serving lies that
they are.  "...Threaten to disrupt our nation's business and
government services"?  Give me a break.

If the situation was really that bad, and I honestly do not think it
is, then I still would _NOT_ support abridging the Bill of Rights to
crackdown on the criminals!  Yet that is exactly what the Secret
Service is engaged in doing.  (And even more horrifying is that this
sort of abuse of citizen rights and ignoring the laws of the land _by
government employees_ is becoming so damn commonplace, what with the
hysteria about "drugs" and the gross misapplication of RICO laws that
every DA and his brother is trying out.)  Furthermore, if there is a
real nationwide telecommunications problem with vulnerability to
criminals, it is most likely the lack of a good, national
telecommunications policy that is most at fault!  And that of course,
once again, falls onto the shoulders of our elected officials.  It may
well be, though, that we are getting all the government we deserve, as
someone so aptly put it -- electorate ignorance and apathy is so high
that we get morons and crooks for elected representatives.

To end that digression, though it is important, and to get back to
your comments: it's obvious that the Secret Service and whoever else
is involved is on a witch-hunt of the scale of that by the FBI during
the late 60's and early 70's against those damn anti-war hippies.
Even if the SS has caught up a number of extremely minor criminals in
its huge fishing net, it still doesn't justify what they are doing.
And this is` particularly true when the law regarding electronic
communications networks such as BITNET, Usenet, and Bulletin Board
Systems is so vaguely undefined at the moment.

Is the administrator/operator of some carrier of electronic
information completely responsible for every bit of data contained or
passing through his system?  The present legal answer is "No, well
maybe, we don't know yet."  We know the Phone Co. is not responsible.
They're a Common Carrier.  Are all Common Carriers exempt?  I don't
think so.  Where do we draw the line?  And here's where we run into a
lot of problems, again, regarding` policy.  Do we want to squeeze
BBS's and Usenet right out of existence?  We will, if we make the
operators of the involved hardware responsible for everything passing
through their system.  Or do we want to promote a global electronic
community with free speech and exchange of ideas and information?  Or
what?

And then your suggestion that we steal software from Lotus or anything
else which benefits Kapor financially is really a inflammatory
strawman argument.  Or a bad suggestion classing you with the worst of
the criminals and hypocrits if you were serious.  After all, there is
_NO_ evidence in your remarks that Kapor is supporting criminal
activity.  Rather it seems he is against a campaign of terror
orchestrated by the SS and AT&T and who knows who else directed at a
lot of mostly innocent technophiles.  Are you lily-white, impeccably
honest, Mr. Moderator?  I doubt it.  And even if you were, you ought
to be worried about the abuse of power that is taking place.

Ever heard this parable?  [paraphrased for brevity] A Methodist living
in Berlin just prior to WWII watches as first his Jewish, then Polish,
then non-Caucasian, then communist neighbors are rounded up and taken
away in the middle of the night by the Nazis.  Each time it happens,
he does nothing, since the Nazis leave him alone.  But when they
finally come for him, there is no one to help him or protest his
treatment, because they've already been taken.

Do I need to spell this out for you?  I hope not.  There's a couple
little clauses in the Bill of Rights regarding: innocence until proven
guilt, freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, freedom of
speech, freedom to pursue happiness.  Surely you are familiar with
these.  Having the Secret Service show up at your house, confiscate
your computer, your media and what-not, and _NOT_ charge you with any
crime is ridiculous!

I'm not advocating theft.  I'm not advocating that phreaker/cracker
criminals go free.  But how about the law enforcement officials stick
to 2 simple rules: 1) follow the laws themselves, and 2) fit the
punishment and enforcement efforts to the crime.  Giving somebody a
felony conviction, a 10 year jail sentence and a $10,000 fine for
stealing something electronically (eg. the E911 operations manual)
that would have been petty theft, had they just walked into someone's
office at an RBOC and taken a printed copy off their desk, is
seriously deranged.

There seems to be a lot of hysteria involved here, and the popular
press is responsible for a lot of it.  But so are the ignoramuses, or
are they fascists?, in the law enforcement agencies.  We here
certainly don't need to add fuel to the fire.  How about level-headed
objective consideration of the problem in its broadest and narrowest
scopes?  (I say that because everyone deserves to be treated as an
individual, yet there is national telecommunication policy at issue
here.)

Oh, and incidentally: maybe it's a forgone issue now, but "hacker" is
not a criminal or delinquint by definition, or at least, not
originally, and not by most people who have pride in being one.  But
maybe the hysterics and popular press have abused this word for so
long that it no longer has its original meaning.  I regret that Mr.
Moderator saw fit to use it as he did, unless it was merely a result
of paraphrasing without thought some press release.


   ...Chris Johnson          chris@c2s.mn.org   ..uunet!bungia!com50!chris
 Com Squared Systems, Inc.   St. Paul, MN USA   +1 612 452 9522

[Moderator's Note: I am not ignoring you -- we are simply out of space
in this already oversize issue of the Digest. I'll reply soon.  PT]