Forwarded from: Russell Coker <russellat_private> On Thu, 20 Jun 2002 11:57, you wrote: > > "Hackers who brag that they can break into computer systems are > > unpatriotic," he said. "If you're a U.S. citizen breaking into > > computer networks, it's not only criminal but unpatriotic." > > Why does petty computer crime thrust you into an "unpatriotic" > category and other crimes don't? I think that the point they are trying to make is that you can't go around defacing servers etc and claim that you are a patriot doing it for the good of your country. The thing to do is to inform the company running the servers about their problem so that it can be fixed. If the problem is something that could potentially be exploited by enemies of your country then the patriotic thing to do is to inform the relevant government authorities who are responsible for defending against foreign attack. Also the government should have a reliable method for reporting such things. The FBI is widely regarded as an untrustworthy organization, it is believed that if you inform them that a company is running insecure servers (risking fraud or economic attack by a foreign organization) then the likely result is for you to be arrested! Finally, it could be argued that a truely patriotic person won't break ANY of their country's laws. Russell Coker - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Jun 21 2002 - 05:05:28 PDT