Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!xylogics!samsung!know!eli
From: eli@PWS.BULL.COM (Steve Elias)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: frontier justice
Message-ID: <16426@know.pws.bull.com>
Date: 5 Oct 90 01:13:02 GMT
Sender: eli@pws.bull.com
Lines: 68
Approved: warren@pws.bull.com



> > i mis-teco'd that brnstnd@KRAMDEN.ACF.NYU.EDU(Dan Bernstein) wrote:
[ ...mean stuff about suave frontier dude, Cliff Stoll... ]

Dan replies, "I didn't write that bullshit; somebody at netsys.com did."

yikes!  sowwy about that, chief!  
that posting was gatewayed from bitnet.  shoulda known.  BIFF!

not.dan>> > Anybody know if he got paid for the program, and if so, how much??
eli>> mind your own business!  

dan> Well, that question isn't totally unreasonable. I'd guess that he
dan> received a moderate honorarium. NOVA isn't rich.

as the frontier (net) goes, that question is rather mild, i suppose.


From: len@netsys.NETSYS.COM (Len Rose)
Organization: Netsys Inc., Philadelphia

len> made by Steve Elias commenting on Jim Thomas' article
len> which commented on Nova's Cliff Stoll story:

>I didn't write that bullshit; somebody at netsys.com did.

yo!  i didn't write "i didn't write that bullshit..." !!! :)
we've got a meta-misquote, here.  don't tell me you're using
teco, too, Len !?!?!?  (you can't take the teco out of emacs.)


now, on to some comments from Chuck Karish, frontier wrangler...

eli> please cut the bullshit.  the hacker dude and his friends were coke
eli> addicted dipshits selling info to the KGB.  your comparison is obnoxious.

chuck> This brings to mind Gene Spafford's admonition to Mike Godwin that he
chuck> stop whining about civil liberties and use his energy putting crooks in
chuck> jail.  The assumptions that we can always tell the good guys from the
chuck> bad guys, and that anything goes when it's time to fight the baddies,
chuck> are dangerous ones.  They embody the same lazy cupidity that forms the
chuck> intellectual basis for the 'war on drugs'.

is that really what Gene said, or is that how your mindcraft read it?
civil liberties, indeed!  the implication that Cliff violated
peoples' civil liberties is again obnoxious to me, wrangler.

is Cliff's absconding with printers maneuver "anything goes" ???
is tracing an absurdly hidden phone call "anything goes" ???
let's get a little perspective here, eh cowpoke?  

if you want an example here of "anything goes" fighting the baddies, 
don't look to the War on Civil Rights for its plethora of examples.

instead, think of the "anything goes" people who torched Hagbard.

chuck> You can always tell the bad guys in the movies, partly by their
chuck >hair and clothes and partly by the theme music.  It's too bad we
chuck> don't always have cues like those in real life.

if the NOVA show didn't show you enough of Cliff for you to figure
out whether he's a "good guy" or a "bad guy", then perhaps the show
wasn't done that well after all.

peace.

/eli