One for the Kids 261
Reprinted with permission.
CyberWire Dispatch // copyright © October 8, 1999 // All rights reserved
Jacking in from the "Mr. Rodgers" port:
By Lewis Z. Koch
CWD Special Correspondent
The Department of Justice has either lost its collective mind, lost all sense of its own history or is just too damned busy trying to figure out who really gave the order to waste a couple dozen kids in the Waco debacle.
The DOJ has produced a "Hacking Story" kids web page and on it they have a cartoon woman holding "the scales of justice" - only she's not blindfolded.
The page also has a bewigged judge, peering over his glasses, looking stern, squinting down approvingly as perhaps the thumb screws are tightened on another hapless hacker who has fallen into the clutches of a Justice Department searching for another "teachable moment."
Now -- and I am not making this up - there is an "Internet Do's and Don'ts" on this kids page subtitled "Think about it."
Think about this: your tax dollars paid for this.
The "Think About It" section starts off, "People who break into computers ('hackers') destroy property and records and invade privacy. What's privacy worth to you?"
That's a very good question boys and girls. To understand it, how about a bit of a history lesson first.
Perhaps we should we ask what privacy is worth of the family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose privacy the FBI invaded for years, bugging his bedrooms and his phone conversations. What was Dr. King's privacy worth? Or the other people whose privacy was invaded as they interacted with Dr. King?
Or are there two standards of privacy, boys and girls - one for the government rule-breakers and one for hacker rule-breakers?
This is called a "double standard" boys and girls. Can we spell "hypocritical?" Perhaps we should do an Internet search with the key words "black bag jobs" and "FBI." (And for extra credit, try "Iran-Contra.")
The page goes on to ask, "What information about you (or your parents) do you think is private: medical information?..."
Good question. But perhaps an even better one to ask, boys and girls, is why is all that medical data available in the first place? Why isn't it encrypted? You know, in code, so no one can read it? We'll come back to that, later.
It might be that the insurance companies want the data to be open, so they can easily read it as it goes from Internet site to Internet site, medical data traveling across the Internet, just as carefree as can be. The insurance companies want to make it easy for themselves, so they can keep track of all the medical records.
Precautions to keep it out of the hands of, say, the FBI or private detectives, or people who can monitor all those records speeding about the Net would cost money, and insurance companies need lots of money, so they can give part of it to politicians. The insurance companies like to share and we all know sharing is a good thing, isn't it, boys and girls?
Yes, Jenny, you have a question? What, Aetna doesn't share with you? Shame on them. Maybe you should run for Congress. Yes, you'll get extra credit.
Maybe the DOJ should put up a web page for insurance companies, asking them all kinds of fun questions. Inquiring little minds want to know.
The DOJ kids page would have children worry about hackers knowing what grade you got in English or Math or how much money you have and how much money you owe and your letters to a friend and a boyfriend or girlfriend. Are those good questions boys and girls?
Well, on the one hand, most fifth graders, frankly, don't give a shit (oops, sorry about that boys and girls) -- aren't all that concerned about grades or how much freaking money an eleven year old is making. And as to the money they owe... please, let's not get carried away boys and girls.
The DOJ kids page goes on like some blithering 3rd grade teacher in Kansas set to make a fulsome argument for creationism, "When you write something, how important is it to be able to find it again...How important is it that data in computers not be altered...[like] grades?..."
Maybe next week, boys and girls, we can all sit down and write a Freedom of Information request and find out how many people worked the wonderful prose on the kids page. And then we can total up how much they make a year in our special math class! I'll bet it goes way, way, way over $100,000. You think that is a lot of money, don't you? Do you know the expression "chump change" boys and girls?
Time to write another letter, boys and girls. This one goes to the Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley. You know him from your fun history books, the son of Richard J. Daley, who had his Red Squad break into peoples' homes, bug their bedrooms and offices phones looking for information for decades until a Federal Judge had to tell them to stop.
Mayor Daley wanted to know all about people who disagreed with him. And that's the same Richard J. Daley whose handpicked State's Attorney's police murdered two Black Panther members while they slept in their beds.
Well, Richard J's son, William M., is the man who, along with lots and lots of FBI agents and CIA agents and NSA agents, has been fighting for weak encryption rather than strong encryption. Strong encryption, boys and girls, prevents people from reading your personal correspondence or records. Now the Department of Justice wants to bug your computers to prevent you from utilizing strong encryption the way it is supposed to work. Weak encryption makes it so much easier to read your grades.
Let's have a show of hands. Who wants the government to know everything about us and for us to not know anything about the government? Anyone? Anyone? Later, let's all look up "data mining" on the Internet. We can probably find out lots of cool things about your parents that they don't want you to know.
Now let's talk about the best part of the "Think About it" page:
"Some hackers think that if they 'don't alter anything' or 'don't mean to alter anything' they haven't done any harm. But they are stealing telephone and computer time. They also crash systems so they won't work. How do we use information systems today? What would happen if systems like the air traffic control system or the 911 system suddenly stopped working?"
Now, let's be real good students, boys and girls. What's real strange about those ideas? Remember when we learned that word "stereotype?" It's bad to stereotype, isn't it boys and girls? Rachel or Brian, can you tell me what the stereotype is here? Riiiiighht. Good. Both of you! You want to know who, exactly, are those "some hackers" the page refers to. Do they have names? The kids page seems to be telling us that all hackers are bad.
Well, one group of hackers calls themselves L0pht. And they have cool names like Silicosis, Brian Oblivion, John Tan, Dr. Mudge, Kingpin, Space Rogue, Weld Pond and Dildog. Some of them also belong to a hacker group called "Cult of the Dead Cow." Isn't that a great name to scare a U.S. Attorney! Almost makes you want to be a hacker, doesn't it?
You get to testify before the United States Senate and describe how thoughtless the United States government is when it tries to hide software vulnerabilities. You know what? United States Senators were so impressed they even autographed their own pictures for them! Isn't that cool? Tomorrow we'll look up the words "duplicity" and "stupidity."
So I guess the lesson is "some hackers" can be good hackers, unless the DOJ kids page authors or the DOJ itself wants to challenge the United States Senate. What do you think? Maybe MTV would even do a celebrity death match segment DOJ v. the Senate.
How about those last ideas boys and girls, about systems crashing? Why is it some people have become centa-billionaires or just plain billionaires by making computer software full of flaws and mistakes and bugs, causing the programs to crash all by themselves or to be crashed by some silly 16-year-old script kiddie? Are these very rich men ever asked why a multitude of software users is made to endure their bug-ridden products?
No, Rebecca, no need to answer, that was what we call a "rhetorical" question.
What do you think your parents would do to General Motors or Ford if their car or truck totally self destructed by itself or fell apart at the slightest fender bump?
Yes, Brian? Oh, I see, well I am sorry about your father's Yugo...
You know the concept of "bankruptcy?" Don't you think it's only fair, boys and girls, that the software billionaires should shoulder some of the responsibility for the flaws in their product rather than putting the blame on the heads of "some hackers?" Maybe the Justice lady should put her blindfold back on and administer justice without fear or favor. What do you think, children?
Tomorrow's assignment, boys and girls, is to read the latest issue of Phrack, write a synflood script and wear your "Free Kevin Mitnick" T-shirts at assembly.
Yes, Brian? Of course you get extra credit for your creative use of "Back Orifice," but tomorrow, please restore the school's network to its rightful owner. Thank you. Class dismissed.
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duh. (Score:1)
The "couple of kids" at Waco were armed not only with semi-automatic rifles but also with full auto mods to their weapons and grenades..i may not support the notion of what the government did was correct, but i'd stop from stating they were a coupla kids.
And since when was routing script kiddie sniffing and cracking ok ? The government doesnt do that, either.
Thank you! (Score:1)
This is why I read /. . Thank you for bringing this to our attention! It's important for us all to be reminded that we're not the only group fighting for the future of the Net.
wow (Score:1)
Maybe one of those evil hackers could modify the DOJ's kids web page to include a link to this article--just so the inquiring fifth grader could get both sides of the story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:3)
Crashing computers? (Score:3)
IMHO, if the Justice Department wants to start looking into computer crime, how about looking into how a *lot* of computer companies (and by no means do I just mean MS, although they are one of the major perps) put out buggy software and then sell the security or software patches?
So, you either have to buy the "upgrade" or face having your data deleted or corrupted by a hacker or by a bad bit of code. In the tone of the article, "Can we say 'Blackmail'? I knew we could." Wasting time and resources on crackers is such BS -- maybe one in ten thousand ever get caught or in trouble, and meanwhile these crooked computer software companies are costing the economy billions in wasted money.
Put a few CEOs in prison and let 'em rot for a few years without a trial. I'm sure that meets with the DOJ's blind-justice-for-all philosophy.
----
the DOJ is Socializing Children... and that's ok.. (Score:2)
Inculcating kids with the "right" behavior is a valid purpose for the department of justice... most of us do stop at red lights late at night when there are no cars nearby...
Granted the page does not get into the finer points that this article brought up, but telling a 5 year old "programmers are good, hackers are bad" is easier than saying "some hackers are good, some are bad"...
I doubt the DOJ thinks crackers are anything other than poor white people...
There is not that much that is highly objectionable there... I think the page did a fairly poor job, but Internet crime is not that page's focus anyway...
The arguements given are not intelligent, but what do you think a 5-year old will read, a list of do's and don'ts or a long persuasive thesis...
Don't forget that the main way that kids will come in contact with this page is NOT on their own, but their teachers/parents taking them there, and giving a guided tour... how many of you have been to this site on your own, its the last place I would point my browser, if it had not been for this article...
Yes the DOJ is trying to indocrinate, but so what? that is what it is there for... that is what the carrot side of crime prevention is all about...
(I am not saying its pretty, but its prettier than Waco, the stick side of law enforcement...)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
sounds familliar (Score:1)
Helping Quentin hack your school. (Score:1)
This is good stuff... (Score:2)
I wish I'd known about this newsletter before. This is good stuff.
What the government does not seem to comprehend is that all the preventative measures in the world won't stop the free nature of the internet. Controlling the internet is similar to the old Sanskrit mental exercise.
Try to stop your mind from wandering. Attempt to concentrate on one thought and no other. Not too easy is it?
The old Sanskrit writers described this phenomenon as the 'caged monkey.' The caged monkey will flitter around the cage incessently; attempting it to stop is more difficult than reigning in the horses pulling a runaway chariot.
The internet is the home of millions of caged monkeys. Try to prevent even one from bouncing and dancing from this place to that. It is an impossiblity internet communications are not centralized and they will not be.
The government should not attempt to control us on this medium. By doing so, it may find itself an obsolete institution that people no longer need or want because people will have collaborated to obtain the services the government stopped giving. We should put the government in its place.
crashing phone system out for hours? (Score:1)
don't i clearly recall that when AT&T had their little network problem that resulted from some dumbass not putting some { } in the code that the real issue had to do with the speed of the reboot.
the machines would crash, because of the aforementioned bug, and then reboot _in about 6 seconds._ And the problem was that when they would come back online they crashed other machines... or something...
Re:Crashing computers? (Score:2)
If your car arbitrarily blows up, that is, but that is only because of Federal safety regulations (and some negligence law, but that is impossible to prove (almost))
the EULA protects software companies... even if the DOJ wanted to, this is not something they can do anything about, at least until they get rid of the EULA...
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
general agreement (Score:1)
Give your average intelligence hacker (with the correct usage), they will take one look at this page and laugh.
The second point they fail on is the fact that crackers and script kiddies typically don't give a crap about the morality of their actions. This site can't hope to compete with the sites that advocate malicious scripting and cracking. The "Mr. Rodgers" comment in the editorial seems all too apt.
There is one example of punishment being meted out and it goes to the kid that crashed a phone system by accident. While it certainly is prudent to understand the repercussions of your actions it hardly seems like a good example since it is rare that anybody (let alone a child) believes they don't know what they are doing. A better example would have been something involving a deliberate cracking.
Mixed in the lame crap is this little paragraph:
"DON'T try to break into computers. It's not a game. It's a crime and it's an invasion of privacy. Computers often contain sensitive information. How would you feel if someone broke into a computer and changed your grades? Deleted your term paper? Cut off your telephone?"
Funny, coming from a group that wants to be able to break into your computer at will. Even if you are able to ignore the hypocrisy, it completely ignores the fact that the only way to be (reasonably) sure a system is secure is to try to hack it. But then if you use NT it's supposed to be solid as a rock right?
Overall, I agree with the editorial. It's phrased a tad more aggresively than I would have done but the points seem to be valid.
How about a contra :) (Score:3)
"Lawmaking: do's and don'ts:"
1. Do not make stupid cryptography laws.
2. Do not waste taxpayer's money on stupid sites.
3. Do not feed our childern with bullshit.
4. Above all, try not to be hypocrite.
or,
"Are you a good Legislator?"
1. "my friend D. from the FBI and I wanted to bug people, but it cost a lot of money. then joey found out he can use taxpayer money to do this FOR FREE! but i've heard wasting taxpayers money is bad"
2. "my friend Z from the NSA brags that he can boycott every piece of high-cryptography software from being exported outside of the US. and then, he can toy around with people's basic rights with total disregard to the constitution. he wants me to help him by cancelling the constitution altogether".
or, how about "Stupid laws hurt Senators, making it harder for them to get re-elected"?
The possibilities are limitless
A little offtopic (Score:1)
Like I said, this is a little offtopic but I felt I had to say it. Other than the form issues I have, excellent job michael.
Creepy Hackers (Score:1)
Okay, kids.... But don't drink caffeine. That might make you even smarter.
I associate plenty of words when I think of hacker, but "creepy" isn't one of them.
Enough talk... I've got to go "take away someone's network..."
hmmm (Score:1)
Wait a minute here... (Score:1)
Two wrongs do NOT (And never have) made a single right. The impression I get from this article is that it's ok to break into computers, because the government does it already. This is one of the most unproductive viewpoints I've ever heard.
Perhaps this justice department program could use some re-tooling, but the overall message is correct. Cracking things is bad. It's bad coming from anyone. You do not contribute to the overall solution by doing so yourself.
[Cr|H]ackers are not Hereos (Score:1)
yes, the government spies on us. yes, they want weak encryption. so how does that make someone stealing credit cards an honorable thing? our government also assisinates people, so should can i go around murdering those who i do not like? just because the government does bad things, that doesn't mean it's ok for anyone else to, either...
i am not defending the government by any means. but [cr|h]ackers are just as much of a criminal as a thief or a vandal. and trying to say hacking is ok because of "l0pht" or "Cult of the Dead Cow" is poor logic. They do not hack to cause destruction, but to find holes in systems. most [cr|h]ackers and/or script kiddies just want to cause destruction. anyone that breaks into a system, steals info, bring down a system, etc., is a criminal plan a simple. and just because they cost big companies large sums of money, that is in no way "sticking it to the man" or anyhting like that. it accomplishes nothing. you might say it shows the security problems in todays networks, but that does not execuse reckless destruction.
[H|Cr]ackers but be made into hereos, but wait until the steal your credit card numbers, or you can't call 911 because some script kiddie wants to be elite. what "l0pht" does is a great service, but i don't consider them [cr|h]ackers in the sense the govmt web site was talking about.
it's takes real skill and intelligence to create and not destroy.
Re:duh. (Score:1)
Yugo's. (Score:1)
-Restil
Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:3)
While cracking is a crime, it is perfectly appropriate for the DOJ to enforce laws against it. One of the most effective measures against criminal activity is preventive education. AKA propaganda, ministry of truth, marketing, flak.
The activities described on the cited page are illegal. The people most commonly engaged in them are young. The DOJ is using the bully pulpit in a means that is just as effective and admirable as the "Just say No" campaign of the 80's. I don't agree with anti-drug laws, and I don't agree with some anti-cracking laws, but I have complete respect for the men and women who must enforce those laws, regardless of their wisdom.
-konstant
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:2)
Good or bad is a value judgement. Value judgements are morals, morals are religion, and church and state are supposed to be seperate (I was going to write "religion is a load of crap" but I'm feeling nice today.)
The government has no place saying whether anything is "good" or "bad". Period. Otherwise, they are practicing organized religion.
Is breaking into my computer illegal or not?
Indeed it is illegal. I don't think their can be much doubt there. Even if the cracker doesn't do anything seriously harmful, he is likely to be tracked down by federal agents, and be tried for comitting a federal crime. He is likely to be accused of terrorism, or worse.
He is likely to have his property stolen by the state (with little or no chance of getting it back). He even has a good chance of spending a long time in jail, possibly without a trial.
Its a damn good thing the American government makes it so clear how illegal it is. I think they should just hang crackers in the public square, and have us bring out our kids to watch. Then they would truly understand.
Should children be encouraged to respect my privacy, my property and the law, or not?
Kids should be encouraged to think freely, make their own sound desitions on what they consider right and wrong, and to stand by and for those desitions. And, if anybody should be doing anything to form a childs mind, it should be its parents, not its government.
-
"boys and girls" appears 17 times (Score:2)
Over the years, CWD, in spite of its kick-your-ass, heavy-boozing style, has scooped the more mainstream media on some important issues. Remember when Brock found a student to reverse-engineer the block list of some crummy censorware, and (surprise surprise!) found sites blocked for pretty obviously political reasons?
I look forward to CWD being on slashdot. It deserves the wider readership it's going to get.
Re:Crashing computers? (Score:3)
I agree with you whole-heartedly.
I've been saying now for while that everyone who has purchased M$ software has a valid claim for fraud, breach of implied warranty, and /or strict product liability.
I'm almost positive a judge would allow a class action law suit based on these allegations to make it to trial.
We as a community need to compile a database of testimonials, i.e., 'My computer crashed and I lost 20 hrs of research"; "This virus took our network down for 10 hrs and we had to spend $50/hr on three sys admins to fix it." A database like this would do the ground work for evidence discovery needed to prove a case for fraud and to prove the damages.
Such a database would be easy to build, I understand. If anyone is interested email me at my email address above. I'm not talking about a bug list. I'm talking about a list of the damage the bugs caused. Specifically how much time and/or money did one spend to remedy the damages that faulty M$ products caused. If nothing else it would force M$ to fix their bugs, and it would be an interesting thing to read.
Contact me... I have web space and time if you have time...
Re:the DOJ is Socializing Children... and that's o (Score:1)
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:1)
<METAPHOR>
no one has houses, all of our possessions are piled on our lawns, out in the open. we can all agree that going onto someone else's lawn and taking things is wrong, but maybe the best solutions all around would be to build houses, because as a few dozen people are saying, you can just walk over there and grab stuff. While we're at it, maybe we should be holding the carpenters accountable for charging us for houses, but only building ankle high fences.
</METAPHOR>
then again, I may be wrong...
Hypocrisy is the word (Score:2)
The Martin Luther King part is well documented. J Edgar Hoover detested MLK so much that he fabricated tapes from snippets of illegaly tapped conversations and spread them around to make MLK look like a communist dope peddling paedophile wife beater.
On a personal note, my uncle was wiretapped during the Vietnam war for daring to stop LBJ's "voluntary" $100/month war bond program, and for organizing a union. FBI wiretapped him, asked his neighbors, friends, and co-workers nosy questions, generally intent only on making it obvious he also was a scumbag under investigation.
That's what this rant is all about. Hypocrisy. It's nothing new. It just needs a good rant once in a while.
--
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:2)
Just because you break into a home and leave without breaking or taking anything, doesn't mean that you haven't done something wrong. And for those that think that just because you aren't "physically" breaking and entering or aren't doing any "physical" harm, that it's ok, should sign up for a course in ethics. Would you like it done to your system (regardless of how tight your security is or meaningless your data)? Think about the police showing up at your house and entering, looking around making notes, then leaving. Without your knowledge, without your consent, and without breaking anything. Or maybe THEY hack your computer and don't "do any damage?"
Would you be screaming about rights then? You bet your sweet ass you would. But then to turn around and say it's ok, if you do it to someone else, because "I didn't hurt anything..." is just damned hypocritical.
Now, I don't agree with the "dumbing down" of security, but hacking/cracking/phreaking should be discouraged as much as possible. The only exception being in the instance of security testing.
Shaken
Re:Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:1)
Ah, you mean the same "Just say No" campaign that managed to teach youth how bad (thank god we havea governments to tell us what is good and bad huh) drugs really were, managed to curb drug usage among youth completely, ended the drug war, and made the 90's the shiny happy completely drugless decade its been.
How could I forget...
-
mixed messages (Score:1)
Granted, the DOJ should have used the term "cracker" rather than "hacker," but most people associate hacking with criminal activity, and more people are familiar with that word.
And, yes, the DOJ is being hypocritical. But look at it from their point of view. I don't think they're out to "get" anybody, they honestly believe they're protecting the "American way of life." Their methods are sometimes underhanded, but their intentions are good. The stuff on their website is intended to be a good lesson for children. What we need to do is support laws that force them to apply those same lessons to their methods. That's the way to fight hyprocrisy, not by saying, "since the government does it, you can too."
human://billy.j.mabray/
Re:duh. (Score:1)
Er.... no.
As for the rifles, the government claimed to have found weapons converted to full automatic, but refused to allow non-government experts to verify this evidence. As for the grenades, all that were found were grenade shells that had survived the fire (i.e. were not filled with any active ingredient), and are thus most simply explained as novelty paperweights of the type the Davidians were known to sell as part of their (licensed) firearms business.
/.
Re:duh. (Score:1)
Education is Good. (Score:2)
The average user today is woefully uneducated about how computers work -- how information is represented and stored, how it is transmitted over a network, and so forth -- and thus is unable to make reasoned judgments about related issues. A person who does not understand that his love letters, written in Word, are stored on his hard disk as files cannot understand that a security hole that permits a remote cracker to read files off his hard disk would permit that cracker to read his love letters. A person who does not understand that information travels over a network in packets which can be intercepted cannot understand the need for end-to-end encryption.
I am not sure how to solve this problem. It is clear that the government, and government schools, cannot be expected to educate the populace about those technical issues which have become critical public policy issues. Why? Because government has, time and again, demonstrated that on these issues it prefers an illiterate populace. A computer-illiterate populace will not demand privacy, encryption rights, or other troublesome things.
Perhaps the industry should get directly involved. I'm not sure how well that would work, considering that the biggest names in the industry (Microsoft, for instance) oppose, through their actions, privacy and literacy for the masses.
Hypocrisy (Score:1)
We all know that our government is hypocritical. That is why we have the whole checks and balances thing. One branch can go completely of its rocker, and the other two are supposed to reel them in (sorry about the mixed metaphor). I know that a lot of us like to rant and rave about buggy software and silly laws, but who are you railing against?
No one is perfect. Flawed software comes out because no one realized the extent of the problems in testing. Most of the exploits and security holes in software that I have become aware of are due to such arcane circumstances that I can quite easily envision a QA failure. Bad software just means bad QA, not malicious intent to sell patches.
Maybe MS does put out sloppy code on purpose.
Maybe CDC is wrong to hack at sloppy code.
Maybe we are wrong to use bad code...
How secure is
Has anyone tried to hack it?
Yawn-O-Rama (Score:2)
And this article goes on like some blithering 3rd grader. After about the 5th "boys and girls" I gave up. Is this a feeble attempt at making a point or your writing style? Keep me in the 0.56% who don't subscribe, thanks.
Lemme get this straight, though. It's okay to hack 'n crack, but not okay to invade privacy. Okay, you explain that to my four year old.
As for the rest of the so-called article, all I can say is: "Huh?"
Whatever.
What a bunch of garbage (Score:2)
That is a very foolish and partisan sentiment. It is also unsound legal thinking. The moment that it becomes illegal or fiscally dangerous to ship unstable software, you will see exactly one thing: less software will be shipped, and the companies that do ship will be huge megaglomerates like Microsoft that can afford to settle a lawsuit. Small developers will have to join the conglomerates in order to preserve their asse(t)s.
If you don't believe me, it is very simple to demonstrate I'm right. Medicine has been going down this path ever since "malpractice" entered the vocabulary of people like yourself. How many small-time doctors do you visit these days? They are a dying breed because they can't afford the insurance or the risk of being sued for accidents beyond their control.
If I could be sued for every bug in every program I have written, I would never publicly release software. It is impossible to track down every bug in software. You are deluded by your hatred for Microsoft if you think otherwise. The greater the complexity, the greater the number of inevitable bugs.
If software harms somebody, then you can sue the maker. If software is buggy, then the market will take care of it. Unless people don't share your opinion of what is acceptably buggy.
I say keep software free and clear. Don't introduce parasitic lawyers into what is, despite griping from people like yourself, very nearly a perfect industry.
-konstant
Re:Quentin Rules (Score:1)
AT&T Bug (Score:1)
IIRC, from the book Expert C Programming, the AT&T bug was due to a switch-case statement in which a break statement had been left out.
In the book, it was presented as an illustration of how fall-through in a switch-case statement could really bite you.
Cannot publish your term paper?!? (Score:2)
check http://www.usdoj.gov/kidspage/do-dont/netizen3.ht
Are they saying that the scientific comunity is BAD???
I publish my papers all the time, if people would refrained from publishing stuff for fear of plagiarism the scientific comunity as we know it would not exist!
personally I think that answer A was the best one!!!
does the DOJ know who a hacker is? (Score:1)
straight off their 'teach the kids how not to crack/pirate' website. and here we go once again, into the definitions.. hmm, perhaps real dicionaries should have def'ns for cracker and hacker, if they already dont
*shrug*
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:2)
I think a meaningful point (there was more than one) might best be summed up as "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", eh?
Yes, children, imho, should be encouraged to respect privacy and property. The law is another matter. Children should be taught to respect good laws, how to fight bad ones and most importantly the critical thinking process that allows them to determine for themselves, based on their own set of values, which are which.
Blind respect for law is too much like faith, and while faith might be fine for succor from fear of death, when you use it to relate to your government, you instantly abdicate your right to freedom.
Jherico
All zealots must be found and shot!
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:1)
The government has no place saying whether anything is "good" or "bad". Period. Otherwise, they are practicing organized religion.
That's just silly. Of course government has to make some judgements as to what's good or bad. Right and wrong might be better terms here.) Otherwise there'd be no laws at all.
Which isn't to say the government does a very good job of it...
Re:Wait a minute here... (Score:1)
I don't think that was the point. I think the authors were attempting, in a humorous fashsion, to point out that the government is guilty of these same things, and at a much more serious level.
Thus they weren't saying to the kids it's ok to do this stuff, the target audience of the web page will probably never see this piece. No, they were telling the DOJ to practice what they preach.
Steve M
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:1)
Valuing human life is a moral too, but I doubt you'd object to the illegality of murder. While I am averse to legislating morality in general, there are some morals that you have to accept in order to take part in an organized society. The fact is, any time you choose one thing over an other you are making a value judgemnet.
Its a damn good thing the American government makes it so clear how illegal it is. I think they should just hang crackers in the public square, and have us bring out our kids to watch. Then they would truly understand.
I hope you weren't being literal here. While I agree that it should be illegal, there is no need to go to such extreme ends. When the perpatrator is simply attempting to expose a security hole without doing any damage, it'd be nice if judges treated this as a mitigating circumstance should the owner of the compromised system choose to press charges.
Peace,
Dom
Re:Thank you! (Score:1)
Further clarification should not be needed
Yer math (Score:1)
2*0=1*0; 2=1?
Give it up -- it's not all that cute, man...
--
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:1)
from Reno's dictionary (Score:1)
of the beliefs, practices or behaviors of
other people that differ from your own."
be tolerent until those that are different are
all dead.
we should not put people in jail for "being
different".
Re:Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:2)
Ok, here in the USA, we have a Republic.
The way a republic works is that the people elect representitives to make decisions for them.
The problem with this is that the elected officials make stupid decisions.
When the elected officials make stupid decisions, the people have to complain about it -- otherwise the stupid decisions stay.
Democracy, even in the limited form of a Republic, just doesn't work if people don't participate and express their opinions about any relevent issue.
Re:How about a contra :) (Score:1)
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
I manage a QA department and have worked in QA for over ten years. There are methods to prevent bad code from getting out. It takes effort to do so, and most suits don't understand why processes and procedures are important, to say nothing of testing. I don't know many times I was told that even though the code got to QA x months late, the QA deadline is still the same.
Any company that does this is intentionally selling bad software, and should be held accountable.
Steve M
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:2)
"But gee, Harold, what if this fella is a commie? We won't be able to read his strong crytpo emails!"
That kind of sentiment is the killer. It's innocent enough on the surface, but absolute power corrupts absolutely, I'm told.
Dirk
Re:Helping Quentin hack your school. (Score:1)
As to the page you refer to, however, since most schools don't have employees who really understand the computer systems they use fixing problems can be very expensive. A student at a school near where I live managed to hack his school's network and screw it up real good -- the final bill for the consultants who came in to fix it was in the tens of thousands of dollars.
really only 1 bad "do and 1 bad "don't" (Score:2)
DON'T try to break into computers
instead of
DON'T try to break into other people's computers
Trying to break into your own computer
is just educational. If it had been proposed
to whatever non technical person wrote this
they probably would have even modified it thus.
second they say essentially "do use chat rooms" and then followup with things not to do there.
This is, IMNSHO, bad advice. Chat room are basically a toilet. Always have been and I don't know a way to fix them. I have small children and let them do most anything they want on the net (no net.nanny crap) but they don't need to know IRC exists. The chat areas on the game servers like battlenet and WON are bad enough, though the kids don't hang out there - they play games.
IRC is where the (very few) pederasts lurk and all the other things parents worry about tend to occur. Put that against the fact that 99.99% of everything there is crap and you've got it. They can chat with their friends via things like ICQ that are less public. IRC is occasionally useful enough for an adult or older kid to wade through the "what sex RU" crap that invades even #perl or #c++ - or even for teens to learn to flirt in a semi-safe place (A 16 year old that can be lured by a loony on IRC has more fundamental problems than IRC itself). For the age range these pages are aimed for it is just lose/lose.
Alright I found one more that boils me. On the
"reckless driving" page they say
Lots of kids know enough about computers to hack into big networks, but so what?
AHHHHHHHG! I knew there had to be something here that would 'out' them as the totally freaking stupid DOJ we know and love.
garyr
Lawyers (Score:1)
Later on, I found out why Justice was blindfolded, and have always wondered if he really didn't know, or if he just didn't want to explain it to me.
The worst part was that he had been, at one time, a congressman.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
On the other hand... (Score:3)
Just because some members of the Government style themselves above the law does NOT mean that it's Open Season on the world's data resources.
Encryption - that's a sounder argument. Prevention of abuse is, IMHO, superior to an eye-for-an-eye attitude. Strong Encryption is the equivalent of handing out portable force-field generators to everyone. If you can set, and enforce, your own boundaries, you don't need to break other people's, out of fear, vengence, or spite.
Yes, I agree that the web page being ripped to shreds is a paranoid rag that demeans it's audience and discredits children's intelligence. On the other hand, most of the counter-arguments fall in the same category. Doing the exact opposite can sometimes be really doing the same.
IMHO, cracking won't be a problem, once IPv6 is FULLY implemented (with flow control labels!) over the Internet, along with a strong flavour of IPSEC and QOS algorithms such as RED, CBQ and ECN, and Windows is replaced with fortified Linux or fortified flavors of BSD (such as OpenBSD).
How so? IPSEC prevents attackers knowing what data is important and what isn't. Sniffing passwords or data becomes impossible. (Funny how the article didn't mention this. If you only encrypt the important stuff, then everyone knows where the important stuff is.)
IPSEC also makes port scanning more complex, for private sites. Simply have the stack reject packets from a source not on a list of known OK sites.
Then there's IPv6, with flow control and packet prioritisation, and all those lovely QOS algorithms. DOS attacks, say by SYN flooding, become impossible. The priority of the packets would drop, and the packets discarded, by the network itself. If the culprit failed to respond to an ECN request to turn the noise down, the net would be capable of automatically locking out the offender.
A fortified OS, such as Linux with the International patches and the various security patches that are floating around, provides you with a solid fortress. Breaking past the prior barriers would be hard enough, but defeating a strong OS, with secure applications, would be next to impossible.
If you want to put crackers out of business, don't invest in slings and arrows. A hilltop fortress, equipt with a Romulin cloaking device, a battery of sensors and early-warning devices, granite walls fifty feet thick and a hundred feet high, with interlocking blocks, and titanium gates, will serve you much better. What's more, the fort turns out to be cheaper.
Re:Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:1)
Me, too, as long as it doesn't become a witch hunt. And propaganda, while neccesary, also spreads a lot of FUD.
Right to Privacy? (Score:4)
It seems that privacy is not a natural right. Locke didn't mention it and, consequently, Jefferson didn't mention it.
If privacy is not a natural right, then privacy is a priviledge granted by the society only when appropriate. As such, one does not have the right to absolute privacy.
However, just because absolute privacy is not a natural right doesn't mean that privacy is not a good thing.
Therefore, making an argument with the assumption that the right to absolute privacy is guaranteed is incorrect.
Andrej
Re:mixed messages (Score:1)
The Cracker can only screw up your data,
The government can screw up your life.
Wait just a damn minute! (Score:5)
That article abosolutely reams one lousy page and one lousy "Don't" on another page and then implies that it's okay to copy materials including term papers.
As a parent of two future "netizens" (god, how I hate that word), I saw the DOJ's page a little differently.
Oh yeah, it's as hokey as hell and my kids will probably never see it. But what about the warning not to talk to strangers on the internet? What about alerting an adult if you get a suspicious email? Those aren't good ideas? Does the "reviewer" have kids? Is the "reviewer" old enough to have kids?
There also happens to be information on how to surf, how to use the internet as a library and what kinds of cautionary procedures a child needs to know. Setting my children loose on the internet is like setting them loose on the streets with a bike. I can't and don't want certain things regulated -- like I wouldn't want it regulated that large trucks are not allowed on *any* street at *any* time. That would seriously impair deliveries and commerce -- not to mention my paycheck -- relies on such things as deliveries. Heck, I work across the highway from a GM plant that is my city's largest employer. So "yay big trucks!" But you can be damn sure I'm going to tell my children to be cautious where they ride their bikes -- watch out for big trucks or stay off of major streets until you're more certain.
Same with the 'net.
I'm not saying we need to regulate the hell out of privacy and computing and the net and all the things the under-25 crowd thinks will seriously impair their abilities to get ahead. But I am going to arm my kids with common sense and even, gasp, techo-ethics.
And all the DOJ is doing is being an advisor. MacGruff the internet crime dog or something. I don't know how useful that page really is, but I don't think it's *harmful.* Geeze. It's up to me as a parent to be there for my kids anyway.
And somehow, in the apparently childless (not to mention child-like) "reviewer's" mind, this ends up being a highly-charged political issue about privacy and your rights on-line.
As in my previous post, all I can say is:
"Huh?"
Re:What a bunch of garbage (Score:1)
Anyhow. Your right, its not possible to remove all bugs in large software, and increasing complexity increases bug counts. Maybe if software makers are held responsible for a significant effort (Yes, that is vague. Vague legal terms like this are what we have judges for, to set the precedent on what constitutes significant effort.) to fix any bugs in released software, they would be encouraged to improve their code and perform real quality testing before release, rather than bloating it with new (and mostly unwanted/unnecessary) features.
Since everyone seems to be using the auto industry as a comparison: The car companies issue recalls whenever they find a defect in the design. They often do this before the Federal government forces them too. If data/time/money loss caused by bad code design was comparable to injury/damage caused by bad auto design, perhaps software would reach a point where patching is rare, and things work as advertised in the first place, similar to the auto industry?
Kinda messy, but I think I got my point across....
Insight is critical there (Score:3)
--
Deja Moo: The feeling that
What's good for the goose... (Score:3)
Is breaking into my computer bad or not?
Is breaking into my computer illegal or not?
Whether those things are bad or not isn't really the point. The point is that if it's bad for you or me or "evil hackers" to do, then it's also bad for our democratically-elected government to do. If it's illegal for one, it's illegal for the other. Or should be. The fact that it isn't - that there are separate rules in play for governments and wealthy corporate interests - is what this article is illuminating. And it needs to be illuminated. The DOJ is doing its best to keep that information from becoming widely known.
Should children be encouraged to respect my privacy, my property and the law, or not?
That one's easy - of course they should. As should the government. The latter has a less-than-stellar record in that department tho'. The law should be respected, at least in as far as the law is fair and just, and fairly and justly enforced. Where the law is unfair and unjust, it deserves no respect, from children or anyone else.
Just say NO (Score:1)
Re:mixed messages (Score:1)
The government has a system for me to work within to protect myself.
The cracker doesn't.
human://billy.j.mabray/
Re:DOJ teaches that selling used items == theft (Score:1)
Re:Cannot publish your term paper?!? (Score:1)
Pssst! The DOJ site was designed for kindergartners. How many 6 year olds do you see in the "scientific community?"
My kid's bright, but he probably isn't stealing your papers -- just reading the abstracts.
Re:What a bunch of garbage (Score:1)
Do you understand what you just said, and all of the implications? In other words, you believe that a manufacturer shouldn't bear responsibility for defective goods?
Re:duh. (Score:1)
Nitrous Oxide == NO2 (Score:2)
This Just Keeps getting worse and worse (Score:1)
-chain
Re:the DOJ is Socializing Children... and that's o (Score:1)
Re:Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:1)
personally, I want the ability to sue someone who breaks into my computer. I won't do it, esp if they were benign, but that is besides the point.
If I break into my university's secure areas, I will face criminal sanction... why the hell should I not if I break into the secure computer systems that this campus has?
Too much parochialism here...
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars --Oscar Wilde
Re:What a bunch of garbage (Score:3)
If I could be sued for every bug in every program I have written [...]
Ah. This is what we call a straw-man argument. The statement centered around the buggy software and selling the fixes. Your response focuses on an imagined scenario where you get sued for every bug. The original author never introduced such a scenario, of course, but that does not seem to trouble you.
The likely scenario to develop from a re-evaluation of such extortion tactics is that software firms would have to start shipping updates to their users (or making them readily available) without being able to make more money from the sale of these "fixes".
What you have now is more like a protection racket where MS can demand that you pay 100s of dollars to upgrade to a new version of their software because, of course, they're not going to continue supporting Word 97. Hell, that's two years old! Same deal with just about all software nowadays.
Open Source may eventually end up addressing this, we'll see. What I would expect to happen is to see lots of little project forks, not to go off an support different functionality, but to support old versions with their existing functionality. For example, some people just can't upgrade to perl 5 (yes, perl 4 was last touched years and years ago, but how long do you expect to have your car?)
Someone could take over bug-fixing of the old perl 4 source, starting their own project to do so.
Same with Linux 2.0. Or Red Hat 4.2!
This could become a booming business, but not one that most companies would want to burden themselves with.
I say keep software free and clear. Don't introduce parasitic lawyers into what is, despite griping from people like yourself, very nearly a perfect industry.
Wow. So, you think that the problems with crypto, privacy, predatory market practices (for which MS is not the world's worst offender, but tries quite hard) and so on, are right in line with what we should expect and accept? Or, do you consider these to be part of the "very nearly" in "very nearly perfect"? In that case, what would be "bad"?
I really don't think that you and I are in the same industry.
Teaching about Bad Laws and Bad Science (Score:3)
I think criticial thinking is something that's not emphasized nearly enough (if at all) in the US education system today.
Whether it's laws or science, we need to teach kids more about free speech and the scientific method.
What do we do instead? Teach them what's good and what's bad.. and what the "correct" answer on a science exam is. Why do we do this? My guess is that it's because it's far easier to tell a kid things in clear black and white so they don't talk back to you. Adults don't want kids talking back to them.
Imagine a kid challenging your commands or telling the science teacher that he thinks his exam was graded incorrectly.
In the long run, these kids grow up to be credulous and apathetic as adults.
Americans haven't learned from the past. (Score:2)
The wonderful place that it was with quaint shops and farmlands.
Throw in some people who were slightly different than everybody else. We now have a witch hunt.
To me it seems as though the DoJ amongst other government agencies is attempting to not educate the children about the proper use of computers and the internet, but to plant a subliminal message that the ultimate enemy is the
As time goes on, those who walk around with proud "Linux is the shit" stickers on their laptop they will be identified as hackers. C'Mon.. how many real hackers (including standard code-jockey, mis-interpreted crackers) run windows anyway?
All of this can be analyzed through a bit of comparisons
It is our right to have private conversations
The government is directly violating that right as I type this
It is not illegal to exploit a computer. Assuming that you are authorized to do so.Through decent software and bug-fixes, this should be irrelevant
Instead of attempting to find a way to put the skills of people to good use, they attempt to break them.
We're turning into the witches and warlocks of Salem. The communists of the cold war. As this attitude progresses, as our children get a horrible taste in their mouth when the word "hack" is mentioned, the true nerds will be the targets of unfair persecution
I don't want this to happen. I like my linux box, I like finding security holes for my company -- and they like me doing it. Instead of bashing a particular site bash the entire ideology between the proper etiquete they are pushing, and the reality. We are the software world. We are the strongest force on earth, our software powers everything that matters in our civilization. Now they want to turn us into targets if we even slightly derivate from the choosen path. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't want to live in a world without the freedoms I've grown so accustomed to.
If you have children, please inform them that hackers are what push the industry. Hackers find the bugs that should have never been released in the first place. If you are a child -- understand the difference between benefiting society, and harming it. As far as cDc and L0pht go, they did wonderful things, they've proven without a doubt that micrsoft products should have never left Redmond.
Keep it up.
-= Making the world a better place =-
Energy Ant! (Score:2)
Of course, my Dad and Mom hated the energy ant cards (which I thought were kind of cool, I mean, how often do schools give out trading cards... I was a kid for cripes sake!) because they were convinced it was Jimmy Carter's fault that everyone was waiting in gas lines. My Dad would make comments about US Navy oil reserves and my Mom (& Dad) both believed that the government was suppressing alternative fuel sources.
Of course, it does seem, to me, that there were indeed enough fossil fuel reserves available to run cars. I still believe in alternative fuel source research, but mostly to improve emissions without sacrificing speed and performance.
In fact, my Dad is convinced of the following scenario: A government scientist develops an alternative energy source that works. He shows it to his masters at the Department of Energy, and, horrified, they make sure to suppress the finding. Actually, I think they made a movie about it called The Formula.
As to the hacker thing... the government hates all hackers that aren't working for it. Hackers (and crackers, let's not forget) working in the CIA, FBI, etc... are just fine, as long as they're hacking & cracking for the government. It's only when an independent person has this power, that they get nervous.
Actually, having the DoJ put up a site against hacking would sure make hacking uncool when I was a kid. I mean really, a bunch of out of touch, patronizing authority figures telling you stuff like this... it sure doesn't make you want to draw eyeglasses and a big mustache on their pictures, does it? If anyone out there collects Babylon Five comics, you might remember the one that was packaged as a fake government propaganda handout for the Psi Core. (If not, you missed one funny comic ;) You know, everything about this Website, reminds me of that comic! The patronizing tone, the massively evil organization behind the comic, everything...
DOJ Indoctrination... (Score:2)
Excuse me, sir, but you seem to have large amounts of wool on your face, particularly over your eyes...
It's canned the Deaprtment of Justice for a reason. Its job is justice. That means law enforcement. It doesn't mean indoctrination. It means that the extent of the DoJ's role in education is to be "this is against the law," not "this is bad." What's more, it has to be this way. Education and indoctrination are two different things. Education -the teaching of facts- is something the government ought to have a hand in, especially as pertains to the law. People need to know certain things to survive in this world, and governments have the resources to allow for this.
Indoctrination -the teaching of values- is another matter entirely, and not one which we can allow the government to interfere with. Governments have a nasty habit of twisting things to their own advantage regardless of the cost. That's rather hard to do with facts (twist 2+2 around all you want; you'll still get 4). Values, however, are different. That's why, in order to be truly free, in the end each individual must decide his values for himself. Ideally, along the way a person will have guidance from parents, friends, and such, but the last step has to be taken alone, something governments hate (too much randomness, meaning too hard to control).
Re:Wait just a damn minute! (Score:2)
Sound familiar? Governmental Key Escrow, asked for by JR herself
I have two children of my own, and I do not appreciate the government using my tax dollars to try and brainwash them. I am a much better teacher to my kids than they can ever be. This is NOT THEIR JOB. Their job is (theoretically, anyway) restricted to very few things outside of interstate commerce and providing for the common defense. I see nothing in the Constitution that says they should be a nursemaid to my children. Just another example of the Feds overstepping their bounds with MY MONEY.
Also, in the future, people might take you more seriously if you left the personal attacks out of your messages. Especially if they are not based in fact.
Faulty logic? (Score:3)
Is it really worth all of this attention? (Score:2)
So it's dumbing stuff down. So what? The target audience is children, not us. If you really think they need to mention some other stuff on the site, why don't you try writing them an e-mail instead of whining on Slashdot and bashing the "evil government". Or is that all these YRO pieces are about nowadays?
The constant repetition of "boys and girls" was annoying as hell, too.
The most concerning thing... (Score:2)
As others have already said, Justice needs to put her blindfold back on.
However, The most concerning thing to me is that the Government seems not to want kids to learn about their computers. They seem to be taking the attitude of "You should only do things on your computers that your teachers and parents say you should." The government doesn't want too many people to become too familiar with the actual workings of computers, because then they might actually value their privacy online!
Hey Look!! Drugs, and how to Make 'em! (Score:2)
It's the "Official Word on Drugs."
Anyway, remember when a couple senators tried to pass a law that would make it illegal to have or link to pages that have information on illegal substances? Take a look at the above link.
I wonder if there are any other government web sites or institutions that break laws. Either potential, obscure, or existing laws? Anybody know of some?
One for the Kids! (Score:2)
"Hi, I'm Attorney General Janet Reno. Welcome to the Department of Justice Web Page for Congressional Members!
"In this part of the Page, we will be reading about citizens of different political parties, religious views, and cultures who don't meausure up to our standards, and how we will respond with force.
"As you read about the experiences of these lesser citizens, think about what you would do if you found yourself lobbied by them. Think about what you would do to stop them.
How might you respond? "By manipulation of the popular press, slanted polls, and blackballing those who fall outside the lines of our administration, we can learn ways to point out differences that make these people look fanatical or dangerous. We can also learn how we can treat ourselves outside the scope of laws we define for the citizens.
"Together, we can help stop these hateful opinions that hurt political careers just like yours. "
INFO for Lechers / Mobsters
Re:Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:2)
Governments and morals. (Score:2)
My answer boils down to: Your wrong.
Governments pass laws that tell us what we can and cannot do. That is their nature. However, they should be making laws based on pragmatic and democratic reasons: not morals.
As a citizen of a country I have to accept that the government tells me what is legal. But I will never accept that the government tells me what is good and bad. When a government does that, then it is telling me what to think, and my brain is off limits to it.
You don't have to be religious to hold your own morals (I am not religious, and btw, I was deeply sarcastic about the public hanging part). But you do have to be religious to believe that morals should be mandated and preached to us from above. And you have to believe in government and church as one if you believe such preaching should come from the state.
-
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:2)
It's mostly prohibitions (either the citizen shouldn't do something, or certain laws shouldn't be made), but some of it does have the effect of explicitly noting rights (for the latter purpose).
Re:DOJ teaches that selling used items == theft (Score:2)
Simple, no, when you think?
You've paid for it once, and if you sell it *once* AND DON'T KEEP A COPY, the publisher still got it's price-per-copy.
Got a clue now?
Re:What's good for the goose... (Score:2)
The law establishes structure. Part of that is enforcement, since no matter what the law is, somebody's almost certainly going to violate it. That means the long arm of the law has to be able to investigate.
Re:What a bunch of garbage (Score:2)
While I agree that it's near-impossible to track down and squash every bug in a piece of modern software, there are a lot (and by this I mean a majority) of software makers who don't even really try. If this isn't obvious to you, you've never been involved in a software release. Why: The software makers know that, quite simply, they can get away with it. Since there is no prescident of software makers being held liable for their defective products, they feel safe in rushing a product to market at the expense of beta testing or any level of ethical programming.
I guarantee, however, that this will change. There is no other industry that can get away with this sort of carelessness and not be held liable, despite what you might be willing to forgive or put up with.
Here's how I see it unfolding: A major release of an important piece of software will be installed by a fairly major business. After a few months, a known software bug will corrupt some sort of very expensive data and cause some very expensive downtime. Clients will be lost and important data gathered since the last backup will be destroyed forever. The firm will do some poking around, and find out that this bug was known about before the release. A few private investigators will interview a few ex-employees of the software company in question and discover that a deliberate decision was made to ship without fixing the bug in order to meet deadlines.
The firm will hire an expensive law firm and will take the software company to court. The case will be tried in the media a dozen times over before the opening statements even begin. The firm will present documentation of both their losses and the negligance of the software company in causing those losses. The software company will present an argument like yours, claiming that their EULA protects them.
The software company might win, if the appeals court upholds the status of their EULA and if they aren't found to be grossly negligent (which no EULA can protect them against). It won't matter, however, since the public outcry created by this high-profile case will lead to new legislation. The public will be so incredibly sick of their own computers constantly crashing that they'll support a shocking amount of regulatory effort. EULAs will probably be outlawed, and software makers will likely be held to a "reasonable effort" bug test.
In any event, the field day will be over, and it will be a Good Thing(tm). Despite what you seem to think, holding companies legally responsible is the only safeguard against corporate bullying -- your "invisible hand" idea was discredited in the 1920's. If you have any question about this, ask yourself: the next time you're wheeled into the hospital, are you glad that the docs have the added incentive of avoiding malpractice, or would you rather trust that they won't skip a test because they have a "gut feeling" that you probably don't need it? Me, I'd rather be sure they cover their ass by protecting me.
----
Re:Cannot publish your term paper?!? (Score:2)
That's wrong in the scientific community, too -- it's called plagiarism.
Re:Cracking is a crime. Period. (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah... (Score:2)
"two wrongs don't make a right" (Score:3)
Our leaders in this country should be the most moral and intelligent people in the country, and the most commited to improving the lives of the average population. But no, they're commited to the most childlike philosophy of all...money. Token concern for the poor and the environment, education, the list goes on.
"Mommy, I want some candy right now or I'm gunna kick and scream!" So EXCUSE ME if I have no respect for the government who isn't much more mature than a child.
Don't get me wrong, there are some great things about this country. We have more freedom than people in most countries. What most people don't realize, is that this is because of the common man DEMANDING our basic rights as laid out in the constitution. Those in power never made a difference for social justice compared to the average citizens who tried to make a difference. Our government tries to make a stable society, but stable for who? The elite.
When slavery ended, it wasn't because Abraham Lincoln wanted it to, it was because people wrote anti-slavery papers/newsletters, educated the poulation, and DEMANDED it.
We don't have 40 hour work weeks and safe work conditions because rich company owners wanted it, it's because people unionized in the early 1900's and DEMANDED it.
When women were finally allowed to vote, it wasn't bacause the men in power wanted to share that power, it's because average women organized and DEMANDED it.
When civil rights bills were passed, it wasn't because Kennedy/LBJ/other presidents wanted it, it's because the civil rights movement DEMANDED it.
Many people who have been forgotten by history died for these causes, these are the people I have respect for, not the power elite.
So when the department of justice spouts off to kids about not causing trouble, this is what I think. When the government uses technology to subvert and control the population, I won't apologize for having no respect for them. Their track record gives them no moral authority to tell me whats right and wrong. No one has that authority because no is perfect. The government's track record just gives them a whole lot less that everyone else.
Re:duh. (Score:2)
routing script kiddie sniffing and cracking ok ? The government doesnt do that, either.
Please see recent news where U.S. government has admitted to cyberattacks. In some cases breeching innocent third party systems in the process.
Re:What a bunch of garbage (Score:2)
I've been involved with a lot of software, and I know that the amount of QA that software goes through can vary greatly, but there are certain kinds of bugs that only the most maniacal QA will find, and these bugs would slip through anything that I could possibly consider a "reasonable effort".
I personally think that "reasonable effort" would consist of a group of QA people working on a product from the time the first architecture is drawn up until the product is retired. This team should be 0.5 to 1.0 times the size of the development team, and put in the same hours as the dev team. Any bugs they find should be fixed ASAP and included in the next update of the software (if the bug is found after the software has shipped), and bug based updates should be free.
Now, that is what I think is reasonable, but I know (and have met some of them) people are out there who think that reasonable effort consists of full ISO 9000-9001 compliance and full adherence to every hare-brained software engineering scheme known to man. Some of the software engineering approaches that I have read call for 60+ pages of documentation for every 1000 lines of code. This is okay for a company like IBM (who, at least in the past) have done that much documentation per code, but a lot of small (i.e. startup) companies couldn't even dream of this kind of load. On top of that, from my experience, a lot of the software engineering approaches that I have seen (and some that I have used) add no overall value, but rather cost a lot of time and effort, and result in poorer overall code.
Legally forcing developers to use a lot of the software engineering practices out there is the wrong answer (it would be highly counter productive), yet I fear that a legally codified "reasonable effort" clause would do just that. I think having a good (intelligent/knowledgeable) team of coders and QA people who know what they are doing will always turn out a better product than a team of mediocre coders weighed down with 10 hours of engineering practices to follow for every hour of actual coding.
If I felt assured that a reasonable effort clause wouldn't force people into using some of the horrific software engineering practices out there, then I would completely agree, but until reasonable effort is precisely spelled out I will remain highly skeptical.
Taking laws into Cheeto-stained caffeinated hands (Score:2)
1. First thing here, there is really no such thing as an anarchy. For short periods, yes, but whoever is most powerful gains control eventually.
2. Those who would stay in control establish rules with punishments and rewards for infringement and obedience, accordingly.
Therefore, whether we all want to break into everyone else's system or not, there are rules that, in order to have a strong society (where people aren't dying, starving, going mad, etc) must be kept. Sorry, all you h4x0r 31337 anarchists.
So, now comes the more complicated realm of "good" (nice coders, the true hackers) and "evil" (nasty warez cracker code kiddies). "Good" hackers want to write good software, tinker, geek about, and generally better mankind. "Crackers" are bad and like to take names like BL00D13 T4L0N and things like that, break things, damage things, etc. Hackers are good when they break in. They patch things. Crackers just like to suck down your bandwidth and spread virii. Right?
No. We can't ascertain motive. So where do we draw the line? Can someone break into a system to cause good will to the admin and users? Can it really be legal?
Until we re-establish in this nation that there is absolute truth, we're not going to get anywhere with this...
Re:abortion is bad (Score:2)
But anyways abortion was just an example, not my main point. I was trying to show how I see law as it should be, existing to stabilize society. And yes your right, some people do say that abortion destabilizes society. But most of the destabilization is caused by the people who kill doctors cause of it or what not. And the destabilition that the act itself might cause isn't much difference upon society as a whole as the the effects of having it illigal. Its kinda like the war on drugs, causes more problems then it makes. Though my view of drugs differs greatly from my view on abortion, as drugs only tend to hurt one's self when used within the frame of law, and can hurt others when used outside of the frame of law, (aka drunk driver/violence is getting a drug that is declared "illigal")
WHOA I just went even farther off topic than you did
But anyhow one last question, as someone who is "pro-choice" why are laws forcing a minor to atleast get counceling in order to have an abortion considered a "bad thing" (tm). As I see it, it seems to be a law that promoted stability and forces people to think, which in my humble opinion is a "good thing" (tm).
Re:Right to Privacy? (Score:2)
I know this is horribly late, but I was metamoderating, and ran across this comment, hopefully you'll notice it in your user comments list.