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From: barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Re: PhonePhreaking in Europe
Message-ID: <8086@think.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Sep-87 15:00:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: think.8086
Posted: Thu Sep  3 15:00:05 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 11:24:47 EDT
References: <812@cod.UUCP> <2133@eecae.UUCP> <813@cod.UUCP>
Sender: news@think.UUCP
Reply-To: barmar@godot.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 40

In article <813@cod.UUCP> rupp@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes:
>Point two:
>
>I do not know what you mean by having "a legitimate place in the
>legend and folklore of programmer history."  That statement sounds to me
>like semantic nonsense.  "Legend" and "folklore" are two warm, fuzzy
>words that are usually associated with benign activities, not crimes.
>Would you speak of the "legend and folklore of Hitler's Wafen SS Deathshead
>Dvision"?  Not if you were sensitive to the activities of that unit in
>World War II, I'll bet.  Which brings me to...

I think it would be more appropriate to think of it like the "legend
and folklore of the wild west" (gunfighters, train robberies, etc.) or
the "legend and folklore of Chicago gangsters".  Popular movies and TV
series have been made about these.

>Point three:
>
>My original concern was not so much that telephone phreaking was
>discussed as it was that the poster discussed the topic as blandly as he
>might have shared information about a statistical algorithm.  Some
>computer enthusiasts seem to be oblivious to the immoral and criminal
>nature of certain types of hacker activity.  I therefore felt obliged
>to criticize what I interpreted as a lack of sensitivity on the part of
>the original poster.  If nothing else, I hoped to point out to that
>poster that his article sounded value neutral on a topic that all
>computer users should condemn for a variety of reasons.

Yes, I noticed it contained no moral judgement about the activity.
However, I interpreted the posting as a news story, and those are
SUPPOSED to be non-judgemental.  It described the problem that
European PTTs are having with phone-phreaks clearly, and that was it.
I was glad to read it.

---
Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
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