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From: barmar@think.uucp (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: misc.headlines,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Hacker Scholarship
Message-ID: <5743@think.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jun-87 03:48:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: think.5743
Posted: Wed Jun 24 03:48:38 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jun-87 06:41:03 EDT
References: <2757@mtgzz.UUCP> <345@genesis.UUCP> <532@houxa.UUCP> <1594@celtics.UUCP>
Sender: news@think.UUCP
Reply-To: barmar@zarathustra.think.com.UUCP ()
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Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 38
Keywords: Wozniak, CU, Apple, security
Xref: mnetor misc.headlines:720 comp.misc:725

In article <1594@celtics.UUCP> roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) writes:
>  Would you
>papplaud your local police picking up street gang members, and, instead of
>punishing them, paying them to teach how to perform assaults?  

Often the "punishment" for some crimes is community service.  These
gang menbers might be good candidates for teaching self-defense at the
Y.

								I agree
>that it is important to beef up security... but this "aren't hackers 
>cute?" mentality is the MAJOR threat.  Someone who destroys a financial
>record should be jailed for robbery.  It's THAT simple.  I don't care
>if your tool is a jimmy or a keyboard.  Scum is scum, no matter how
>high-tech the pond it's floating atop.

I don't think anyone who destroys financial records will be awarded
one of Woz's scholarship.  The candidates will more likely be the ones
who bring an administrator over to their terminal and say, "All I have
to do is type '...' and your financial records would be ruined;
however, if you had done X I wouldn't be able to do it."

What this discussion needs is another good analogy.  Many techniques
can be used for good and evil.  Locksmithing is an important
profession; isn't Woz's scholarship similar to a locksmith school
giving scholarships to people who have demonstrated talent in picking
locks?  I'm sure most locksmiths and many stage magicians started out
by picking locks.

Yes, there are problems if people with these talents have moral
problems.  I think it was once said that we were lucky that Houdini
never turned to crime, because no handcuffs or prison could hold him.
But if you were looking for someone to put on a show, there was none
finer.

Another analogy: the technology that is used to build nuclear reactors
is the same as that for atomic bombs.  Should the study of nuclear
physics be disallowed because it might be used to destroy the world?