Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Fri, 14 Jun 91 22:40:24 PDT From: John_Richard_Bruni@cup.portal.com Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: 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 460, Message 2 of 7 Lines: 31 Pat, I grant you all of what you said in your preface to the Len Rose topics, yet I still wonder. As a journalist I keep coming across references to computer fraud totalling somewhere between $2 BILLION to $20 billion a year. There must be some fire to all this smoke. Yes, the hackers make life more problematical for those who like (as I do) open exchange of information on the computer nets. The security requirements are a hassle. But in the course of researching a novel that has hackers in it, it slowly came to me that the real troublemakers are much more deeply buried in the system. I know of 'Phone Phreaks' who have written themselves into the system since ESS-4 came out. These guys are not just hacking the phone company, they are so far into to it that for all intents and purposes they *ARE* the phone company. Darksiders like these make hackers look like small fry ... which for the most part they are. I still think Cal Tech and MIT oughta get the good hackers and make them into useful members of society. Universities do a much better job of that on smart people than jails do. Put the moles in jail, if you can find 'em. Most of them probably have Swiss bank accounts by now and have retired to the Riviera. That's my two cents worth, and I know it's controversial. But I was forced to decide what I thought of all this when, in the course of researching my book, I made friends with both hackers and 'trackers.' That's all, folks!