Xref: utzoo comp.org.eff.talk:2769 misc.legal:27012
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From: mem@zinn.MV.COM (Mark E. Mallett)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Public Access Sites -- concerns, problems, and precedents
Message-ID: <1399@zinn.MV.COM>
Date: 18 Jun 91 06:28:57 GMT
References: <1991Jun17.051532.6155@ddsw1.MCS.COM>
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In article <1991Jun17.051532.6155@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes:
> [ Much interesting commentary omitted ]
>
>Is it illegal to know how to break into a computer, even if one never uses 
>that information to break into any systems?  Should I be able to be punished
>for telling others how to break into a system if I know how to do so?  

Remember Ken Thompson's famous paper describing how he modified the
login program, and then modified the C compiler to modify the login
program (and the C compiler)?  I wonder if he'd publish such a thing
now.

Richard Feynman ("surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!") told many
stories of his mischeivous nature.  In one, while at Los Alamos, he
made it a habit to surrepticiously steal combinations to all of the
locked files, safes, and so forth, during the atom bomb project.  If
that were now, and he told the story, would he remain a free man?

-mm-
---

"Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to
mature them for execution.  An army, so large as seriously to menace
those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations;
which would suppose not merely a temporary combination between the
legislature and the executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series
of time.  Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all?
Is it probable that it would be perserved in, and transmitted along
through all the successive variations in a representative body, which
biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses?  Is it
presumable that every man the instant he took his seat in the national
Senate or House of Representatives would commence a traitor to his
constituents and to his country?  Can it be supposed that there would
not be found one man discerning enough to detect so attrocious a
conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of
their danger?  If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought
to be at once an end of all delegated authority."

			Alexander Hamilton
			the Federalist Papers, #26

-- 
Mark E. Mallett  Zinn Computer Co/ PO Box 4188/ Manchester NH/ 03103 
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