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From: TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Crackers: Innocent and Misunderstood, Says Mr. Kapor
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Date: 3 Jun 90 07:11:58 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 411, Message 1 of 8


In one of the replies to mine, bungia!chris@eecs.nwu.edu writes:

>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, 

That is what he said, assuming the Post quoted him correctly. He said
that these fellows were being hindered in their free exchange of
information. He does not think it was theft. He thinks their presence
on those computers was legitimate.

>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.

How come you want the crackers to be sure and have a fair trial before
anyone pronounces them guilty, yet you are happy to pronounce guilt
upon the Secret Service without any further ado? I don't know if the
Secret Service is guilty of anything or not, but what does that have
to do with the acts attributed to the crackers?
  .....

>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.

How defined do you want things to be? Just what would, in your
estimation, ever justify stopping people who break into computers?
You know, all the old cliches, i.e. witch-hunt, are getting pretty
tiresome in my estimation. I don't think you would ever be satisfied,
frankly, because I see in your message a considerable anti-government,
pro-cracker bias that no one would ever be able to overcome. We could
spend much bandwidth rehashing all the same, tired old issues.

>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."  

That's right, he is. Either you have control over your computer(s) and
your telephone lines or you do not. Which is it?  I thought blaming
the computer for what went wrong went out of favor twenty years ago.
Do you remember when clerks in all big business places used to say the
computer had 'made an error' in something?  If you are not in a
position to run a big site responsibly, then don't do it. And where I
might have some sympathy for really huge sites, I don't buy the excuse
of some two-bit BBS sysop that he "can't possibly read everything on
his board ..."  No one is asking him to read it all ... just to
cultivate a responsible class of users and respond to problem postings.

>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.  

Uh, do I get a chance for a fair trial also, or is that out of the
question where you are concerned?  Kapor says its not really burglary
or theft, it is the dissemination of information. Townson says it is
burglarly and theft, but as long as Kapor says its okay, then go ahead
and steal from him.

>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.  

Well, I would hope someone could successfully terrorize the little
snot-noses who like breaking into computers. And I have yet to see any
'innocent technophiles' get arrested for anything, or terrorized, for
that matter, unless it is someone who gets frightened easily, or
something.  And yes, he is supporting criminal activity, but doing so
by cleverly trying to redefine *what is, and is not crime*. Repeat: He
said they should not be on trial. He thinks activities like the
alleged are 'harmless' ... how many times must I repeat this?

>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.

Of course not. Whatever gave you the impression I said or thought I
was?  And as for the so-called abuse of power that occurs, there are
plenty of people like yourself to worry about it. 

>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.

Ah yes ... Martin Niemoller; but it was Lutheran, not Methodist; and
you forgot to include the step where the Catholics all get taken away.
I heard the 'parable' originally, when he first used it in a sermon
back in the middle fifties. He was invited to preach at the Chapel
once a year or so. By the by, there were not any 'non-Caucasians'
mentioned in the story ... did you just make that part up? That poor
story is so abused, so mis-used for everything under the sun. I
suspect Martin is sorry he ever brought it up.

>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. 

Uh, no, I never heard of those things. I'm only an iggorant moderator.

>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. 

You may not be advocating theft, but you are trying to make one set of
circumstances offset another. There are ways to deal with errant
government officials just as there are ways to deal with crackers. 

>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.

I think I said 'cracker' -- not 'hacker' in my report when I used the
word myself. The newspaper article may have mis-used it. To summarize
my complaint, Mitch Kapor and I would disagree as to the nature of the
alleged acts. I call them theft and burglary. He calls them otherwise.

We both agree that everyone should have a fair trial; and that no one
is officially guilty until the court has so ruled. I beleive that
people who are found guilty of theft and/or burglary should be treated
like any convicted felon. Chris Johnson seems to think the government
should be punished instead for starting a witch-hunt. 

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


Patrick Townson