Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!agate!muffy From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Should we let students run COPS to get each other's passwords? Message-ID: Date: 12 Jun 91 16:18:41 GMT References: <1991Jun12.042513.20870@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Jun12.055211.24457@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <1991Jun12.140419.28896@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Jun12.141657.29238@athena.cs.uga.edu> Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator) Organization: Natural Language Incorporated Lines: 19 In-Reply-To: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu's message of 12 Jun 91 14: 16:57 GMT In article <1991Jun12.141657.29238@athena.cs.uga.edu> mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes: (2) Are you saying "People with easy-to-guess passwords deserve to have their accounts broken into"? Blame the victim, of course, folks! Do you say the same thing about rape victims? No, and no. However, I've heard this comparison to rape before, and it is not a very good one. A better one would be something like not locking the front door of your house. In the case of rape, the victim can't take preventative measures against the attack (I don't believe that "provocative dress" is truly a cause - if someone wants to rape someone, they will do it however the other person is dressed). I am not saying to "blame the victim," but I am saying that if you leave all your doors and windows unlocked, you should recognize that your chances of getting broken into will probably go up, and if you do not want this to happen, you *can* do something about it. I don't want to be raped, but there is nothing I can do (if there is something, please let me know!) to make it less likely. Muffy