> matt wrote a while back
>
> >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.
I would never dispute that, and have no desire to get into an "oppression contest".
> 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?
To a degree it is the megacorps, sure. How about this:
http://www.rawilson.com/prethought.html
and scroll down to 9 Confusion 3166 y.D.
(it is a list of companies that have given at least $500K to BOTH Gore and Bush).
But it isn't JUST the .com (Sorry Doug, I was gonna use the abbreviation "corps" but that looks like I'm talking about the USMC). I take for granted the fact that our .gov is in the process of increasing its power and size, and often needs a scape goat to justify this. The two biggest ones right now are dopers and hackers. "The DEA needs civil forfeiture to fnord fnord shut down the big bad drug lords who want to fnord get your little girl fnord addicted to DOPE". And "The FBI needs key escrow so that evil fnord fnord cyber-terrorists and pedophiles don't blow up your daughter's school (while sitting at home connected to the big bad fnord INTERNET) fnord or MOLEST HER fnord fnord."
> 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
Well, BigCeegar.com doesn't have jack-botted thugs kicking in doors (yet...).
> 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.
Information in and of itself is not necessarily "property". That is a point subject to debate.
> 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.
Actually they were impressed that I "caught" them.
> gaining access to your information
Whoa whoa whoa. No one "gained access" to any of my [private] "information". They hacked a Win98 machine used for playing games. Nothing that is sensitive is on a computer directly connected to the internet (a lesson Joe Scotchenwater ought to learn), and there is nothing on that machine other than games and mp3s.
> means that someone
> might have an easier time getting into your firm's network. eh?
Nah. I'm known as the "security Nazi" here ("whatdaya mean I can't tape my password to my monitor?????") and after the few events security events we've had (can't discuss) my loyalty and integrity is not going to be questioned.
> but i'm sure you 1]. take proper precautions at home
Well, see above. This was a box I didn't care about.
> and 2] build a kick ass
> firewall at work to keep 'em out eh? :)
It helps having a healthy budget for that purpose. :-) But you realise of course that the firewall is the EASY piece of an InfoSec dep't and penetrations and compromise are more likely to come from many other places (oh, the stories I could tell.....).
Matt
-- Matt Cramer <cramer at voicenet.com> http://www.voicenet.com/~cramer/ A conspiracy theorist is the new name for what we used to call a journalist.
-Richard Theime