If you make hacking a terrorist activity punishable by life in prison, you take the responsibility away from those companies that put out bad software. Hackers have driven the security industry and kept companies like M$ and $un for shirking their responsibilities. My question for congress would be this. Would a terrorist who has no problem dieing for his cause give a rats ass about going to prison for the rest of his life. Considering that at the end of his life he has a free ticket to heaven? I think is best said by Thomas Jefferson (if I'm wrong on this someone correct me). -- "Those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither! " Realizing the totality of our freedoms shrinking faster with every year, do not we consider how comfortable we are now in our security roles. Compared to a witch standing in front of a Spanish inquisitor I think comfort would be a faded memory. -----Original Message----- From: Felix von Leitner [mailto:leitnerat_private] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:38 AM To: vuln-devat_private Subject: Re: Civil Disobedience Thus spake John Thornton (jthorntonat_private): > Again, I have always felt it was my duty to report attacks against my > network to there ISP. I looked at it as doing my part to make the internet > more secure. I figured it is a good lesson for the kid to have his service > taken away. If this bill becomes law then its no longer just some kid > getting his service taken away. It is something that can escalate to much > more and could result to some kid going to jail for a long time. I will not > be a part of it even if there is just a slight possibility that this can > happen. I want nothing to do with it. And what will that achieve? The opposite of what you actually want: the computer crime statistics will show a marked reduction of "cyber criminality" and the government will not only believe they did the right thing, they will also use this as precedent for other "terrorist" problems. Driving too fast, for example, because a very fast car causes more damage on impact than a slow one, so it is obviously a terrorist weapon. So we better enact the death penalty on it. Felix
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Oct 15 2001 - 12:55:40 PDT