Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Sat, 15 Jun 91 01:15 CDT From: TK0JUT1@mvs.cso.niu.edu Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Well Len, Was it Worth a Prison Term? Message-ID: Organization: TELECOM Digest Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 459, Message 2 of 5 Lines: 56 The Moderator's comments in TELECOM Digest #453 giving his view of the Len Rose sentencing are disingenuous. After some moralizing about Len, the Moderator leaps to examples of hackers and other intruders, then adduces these examples as justification for Len's sentencing. Len *WAS NOT* busted for hacking, but for possession of AT&T source code and for sending it across state lines. Check the evidence and charges. He did not send this stuff to a "hacker" in Illinois. Rich Andrews, the Illinois recipient, was not accused of hacking. Two programs, including login.c were sent to {Phrack}, but the {Phrack} editor was never accused of being, nor is there any evidence that he ever was, a hacker. And, contrary to another post in the same issue of TCD, there is no evidence that the programs Len possessed or sent were ever used in criminal activity. Both public and non-public court records and documents indicate that the issue was explicitly one of unauthorized possession of proprietary software. Counter-assertions by Len's critics will not change this. There is little disagreement that Len may have acted unwisely. The question is whether his actions justify a prison sentence, and to my mind the answer is an emphatic *NO!*. It is absurd to imply that somehow Len failed to learn from a "crackdown." The case was the beginning of the so-called "crackdowns," and his actions are no more a message to "hackers" and "phreaks" than double-parking tickets are to auto thieves. There are six levels of prisons in the federal system, with level-1 being the most minimum of the bunch. Len will most likely be sentenced to one of these as a first-time, minor, non-violent offender. But, despite the term "country club prison," there is no such thing as an easy-time prison. Contrary to the Moderator's comment, prisons are rarely "therapeutic" places. I've been in and around them since 1980, and the number of offenders coming out the better because of their prison experience are few. Len's ten month stay and subsequent probation period will cost the tax-payers upwards of $30,000. There are alternatives to incarceration that are less costly while simultaneously serving the ends of the need for sanctions. Even if we assume that Len is guilty of all the charges invented by his critics, his incarceration is simply not worth it for society. To answer the Moderator's question about whether "it was worth it:" No, an unjust sentence never is. Nor is anything served by exaggeration and hyperbole that, in this case, attempts to claim otherwise. Jim Thomas Sociology / Criminal Justice Northern Illinois University [Moderator's Note: Jim Thomas is one of the Moderators of Computer Underground Digest, a mailing list on the internet with roots going back to 'hacker' discussions in TELECOM Digest in the past. PAT]