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From: howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
Newsgroups: alt.security,alt.folklore.computers,comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Feedback on Computer Crime
Message-ID: <66154@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 9 Aug 90 17:33:51 GMT
References: <26581@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <14443@wpi.wpi.edu> <TADGUY.90Aug9092147@abcfd21.larc.nasa.gov> <14467@wpi.wpi.edu>
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Reply-To: howell@bert.llnl.gov (Louis Howell)
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Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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In article <14467@wpi.wpi.edu>, dmorin@wpi.wpi.edu (Duane D Morin) writes:
|> In article <TADGUY.90Aug9092147@abcfd21.larc.nasa.gov>
tadguy@abcfd01.larc.nasa.gov (Tad Guy) writes:
|> >
|> >This must come as quite a surprise to the moderators of the various
|> >comp.sources groups.  I wonder what all that stuff in my archives is...
|> >
|> >	...tad
|> 
|> Oh, do you happen to have WordPerfect, MS Word, Microsoft Windows, or the
|> newest five Sierra games?  If you dont, Im sure I can find a bulletin board
|> (that CHARGES for time), that does.  
|> 
|> FOR EVERYONE THAT IS SENDING ME VARIOUS EXAMPLES OF WHERE I SCREWED UP:
|>   
|>    I fully support the people that do in fact encourage the hacker ethic.
|> I see one more letter with the word GNU in it Ill scream.  What I
would rather
|> here people talk about is what they think of the people who do NOT adhere to
|> such ethics, which is what I understood the original post to mean.  I am
|> most definitely pessimistic about computer ethics today, and I hope that 
|> people can understand why.  I cant honestly believe that everyone who is 
|> [...]

Could you tell me why in the world I would WANT copies of WordPerfect, MS Word,
and MS Windows?  :-)  As for the games, I can't say, never having played them.
I can say, though, that I've never encountered a computer game that was as
much fun to play as it must have been to write.

\begin{tirade}
I think there are just as many "true hackers" out there now as there ever
were.  There's lot's of good free software available, as anyone with access
to USENET, Netlib, etc. can easily verify.  The difference is that the
total base of computer users, and the amount of money to be made from
software, has grown much faster than the set of hackers.  Any geek can
pirate a program today, whereas in the past said geek would probably not
have had access to a computer at all.  In the Good Old Days (tm) you had to
actually know something about computers to use them; now all you need is
to understand an on/off switch.  That's the low-end of the problem.  The
high-end is that software has become big business.  The goals of many
in the industry have gone from "getting things done" to "making money at it".
Hoards of lawyers, accountants, and similar vermin have been attracted to
the bright lights, and have done their best to corrupt the whole enterprise.
More dedicated people are working at it now than ever before, but there are
now more scum than good people.
\end{tirade}

Louis Howell

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