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From: df@sei.cmu.edu (Dan Farmer)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Should we let students run COPS to get each other's passwords?
Message-ID: <26899@as0c.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 12 Jun 91 17:46:15 GMT
References: <1991Jun12.140419.28896@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Jun12.170651.4239@athena.cs.uga.edu>
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In article <foo>, mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington) writes:
> In article <bar> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
> >In article <foo2> 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.  
> Does that mean I have no right to prosecute a burglar who happens to
> get in through an unlocked door?  Does the unlocked door justify burglary???

  Nope.  She only said that your analogy wasn't any good (I agree), and
said nothing about breakins (computer or house-type) being justified by
leaving your door (virtual or physical) open.  And to some countries,
merely cracking a few passwords, browsing around, etc., etc., is not 
illegal, so you wouldn't have a right to prosecute, unless they were
so foolish as to come to the USA, come up to you and say to your face
that they did it.  Strange issues, all this security stuff.

 -- d