From: J. Forster (jfor@quik.com)
Date: Fri Sep 06 2002 - 14:28:53 PDT
Ryan M Gill wrote:
> At 4:29 PM -0400 9/6/02, J. Forster wrote:
> > > The hacker community isn't out to destroy the world. They are there to
> learn and discover.
> >
> >Including those who launch destructive virii ?? I don't think so. Some may be
> white hats, some are black, some checkered.
>
> "Remember that tank that that person had in San Francisco? Thats why civilians
> shouldn't have military vehicles...!" I can't believe you'd fall for that.
It has nothing to do with the issue, except to prove the point some are good, some
bad.
> There are many legitimate reasons for people to "hack". From the standpoint of
> understanding security, learning how systems are secure and how they work in
> general. Most hackers if not all are out to learn and understand things. They
> aren't out to steal state secrets and destroy your computer.
Some are, some are not.
> In some cases viruses that escape from people are where someone is working on a
> program as an experiment and
> it gets away from them.
Careless is not a valid excuse. Neither is incompetence. The damage is still done.
> Others are in fact malicious. Have you ever had a run-away Diesel? What kind of
> havoc can one of those cause if
> it's in a public parking lot?
Accident or not, you are still liable.
> The problem with the general view that government has of hackers is that they've
> been told by industry that "hackers are bad -umkay".
> They get in and cause millions of dollars of damage. In many cases what is now
> illegal is not unlike telling someone that their door is open or that something
> is not working.
There is difference between telling someone their door is unlocked, and entering
through that door. The latter is WRONG.
> Some corporations are getting to the point that that if you find a security hole
> in their software they label you a hacker and file suit against you stating that
> you gained access to private information by poking at their software.
That is wrong also. SW makers should be liable for holes, just as a defective lock
maker would be.
> Law enforcement in general fears hackers because they typically know squat about
> computers. They get a Federal
> Agent saying that someone is dangerous and they believe. (Take that IBM server
> computer that has been on TV recently, that's about how local law enforcement
> understand computers...."server? Whats a server?")
>
> The best example of this was a hacker that gained access to a document that
> explained the 911 system on the nations phone network. The hacker was caught for
> something unrelated and it was charged that the document was work some sum of
> money in the range of several tens of thousands of dollars (makes it a felony to
> "steal" the document). It turns out that you could order the document, in printed
> form, from a phone company trade catalog for something on the order of $10.
> Claims of damage in cases of Hacking are from my experience always massively
> inflated. Typically the claims are made so that Law
> Enforcement gets on board.
If he's been wronged, he should be allowed to file a claim or suit for abuse of
process and collect actual and punitive damages, both against the company and the
agency.
-J
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