>If many and most of your friends were being harassed and investigated by
>the Feds how much of a fan of the .gov would you be?
and then this, more recently
>So I was telling this story to some very
>well paid and quite talented co-workers and they freaked out - why didn't
>I notify his isp, call the police, etc. First of all, it was my fault
>since I had been too lazy to finish that linux firewall and get the dsl
>software running on it, so I kinda deserved it. Second, this wasn't a
>harmful hack - they hadn't caused any damage. No harm, no foul. So you
>can see how even the average IT worker doesn't think in "our" world.
you know, of course, that the BoR has probably been systematically violated far more in gov't actions against lefties than it has ever been violated in action against hackers, yes? some of them have even lost their lives. i'll turn that one over to nathan any democrat will do newman, chaz baby, esq. and justin d.s. schwartz, esq since they'd know far more than i.
One thing that puzzles me. Is sit imply big bad .gov that has arbitrarily decided to terrorize hackers? Who do you think puts the muscle on them? do you think that, say, in a world where the Internet is entirely commercial that it'd be any different? do you think that Joe Scotchenwater, CEO of Big Ceegar Inc cares that you're just checking things out coz it's there and you can? Big Ceegar Inc ain't Mt Everest and Joe Scotchenwater doesn't think it is. If, for ex, building construction left the firm vulnerable, for Joe Scotchenwater this does not mean he thinks you should get in the firm's (and his employee's, his vendors, his clients, etc) private and personal and proprietary data just because you (generic you) have a woody for benign hacking. Joe Scotchenwater, in fact, believes that no matter whether he was remiss security wise or not, it's none of your (generic your) business, even if all you're doing is seeing if you can get in or just checking out the architecture.
To me, that's one of the major reasons why libertarian anti-state posturing is so weak. The analysis fails to examine what the gov't is *really* for: to protect private property.
kelley
p.s. i'd be careful about advertising that hack and your failure to protect your home machine. i'd think the firm you work for might be intensely troubled by that. gaining access to your information means that someone might have an easier time getting into your firm's network. eh? but i'm sure you 1]. take proper precautions at home and 2] build a kick ass firewall at work to keep 'em out eh? :)