On Fri, 2003-07-11 at 08:18, Rosenquist, Matthew wrote: > Zot, > > I see your analogy to be a bit off the mark and may lead the casual observer > to inappropriate conclusions. Your example of "self defense" (i.e. > attempted murder) is considered a "crime against persons" and yes you have > the right to defend yourself/others with reasonable force. However, we are > not talking about a "crime against persons" we are discussing what the penal > code recognizes as a "property crime". A better analogy would be someone > who is spray painting graffiti on your garage or placing sugar in your gas > tank. Property damage yes. But does that give you the legal or moral > rights to track down where this person lives and burn their house down? No. > Lynch mobs are (hopefully) a thing of the past. The crime against persons/property is somewhat important. But your gas tank analogy is somewhat skewed. You do have the right to protect your property. These rights differ based on values (monetary and societal) and differ based on jurisdiction (Massachusetts vs Texas). I am not proposing you "track down and burn the place where they live" but that you have the right to prevent them from destroying or damaging your property. In this case you may have the right to prevent someone from entering your property with a funnel and a bag of sugar, even by force, but you do not have the right to go to super market and shoot people who are buying bags of sugars and funnels together (except maybe in Texas). > We have law enforcement to > conduct investigations and a judicial system to prosecute such property > crimes. This is not true, in that we do not have effective law enforcement *to prevent or stop* ongoing attacks. We really do not have effective government based process for investigations unless the attack causes enough property damage, or raises other issues. After all, why have reactive Infosec departments, security firms, house alarms, if there is effective Law Enforcement and a Judicial System? > > An interesting side note however, as this is a property crime, you have > civil litigation options. So instead of burning the culprit's residence to > the ground, sue him out of house and home. This does not fix your car, or truck that was critical for your business. And if the person is homeless or poor, this does not offer a remedy. With Asymmetrical Warfare, the hostile is often the David of the relationship and has little if anything to lose, in comparison with the potential damage. -- Zot O'Connor http://www.ZotConsulting.com http://www.WhiteKnightHackers.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jul 15 2003 - 15:27:26 PDT