Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!eli
From: eli@PWS.BULL.COM (Steve Elias)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: hacker = computer criminal.  so what?
Message-ID: <16409@know.pws.bull.com>
Date: 4 Oct 90 14:11:52 GMT
Sender: eli@pws.bull.com
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Approved: warren@pws.bull.com


so the media has changed the meaning of the word "hacker".  
so what?  this is VERY old news.  please quit whining about it.

> brnstnd@KRAMDEN.ACF.NYU.EDU(Dan Bernstein) writes:

> Employers have no right to tap phone lines. There is both a technological and
> a legal difference between "tapping" and simple in-house monitoring.  Further,
> as Stoll notes in his book, he did not have authorization for much of this
> activity.  Nova failed to address these distinctions. The similarities between
> Stoll's behavior and the hacker(s) he was pursuing were ignored, and Nova
> treated the chase uncritically.

similarities between Cliff's "behavior" and the hacker's "behavior"...
please cut the bullshit.  the hacker dude and his friends were coke
addicted dipshits selling info to the KGB.  your comparison is obnoxious.

recall that Hess said "some freak on the other side has tracked me down",
or some such.  the comparison ends there!  

> Many of us have been critical of Stoll's a-moral chase and contemptuous of his
> irresponsible and one-sided depiction of "hackers."

many of you have been coming across like a bunch of jealous twits when
it comes to those who represent our community through the media, such
as Cliff Stoll or Gene Spafford.  in fact, i'd say it's a bit of the
"Carl Sagan" syndrome, wherein many twit astro-geeks like to express
their contempt of Sagan.  it's immature whining, yall.  word.

> Judging from the Nova program, it appears that Stoll has remains mired in
> the self-righteousness of his quest, and neither he nor the producers of Nova
> seem to recognize the affinity he and his quarry have in common: The obsessive
> games of both led to violations of privacy, ethics, and perhaps the law.

oh, please.  

> Is it
> really permissible for Stoll to "appropriate" equipment and have Nova portray
> it as a semi-comedic scene?

yes.  it's permissible.  

>  How could Nova so glibly pass over the
> issue of privacy by making it seem a 'crime' that telecom people in one state
> wouldn't give out information on a phone line because the warrant wasn't good
> for that state?

because if they expressed all the righteous twitlike indignation that
i keep seeing in this newsgroup, their documentary would have sucked
wind and everyone would think the NOVA staff was as twitlike as those
who make usenet an uninhabitable realm o twits.  no kidding!

> A few months ago I was feeling quite badly for the tone of a review I had
> written about Cuckoo's Egg. However, after seeing Nova, one wonders why Stoll
> seems to have learned virtually nothing from the critiques of his work?

one does not wonder why you and others are so intent on criticizing the gent.  

> Anybody know if he got paid for the program, and if so, how much??

mind your own business!  

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH !  

bye.

/eli