[Wolves] I'm back!

[wolves@mailman.lug.org.uk]

On Tue, 5 Aug 2003, Chris Owen wrote:
> Fizzy wrote:
>
> "Is stealing from BT wrong? I would say that's a
> question for ones own conscience."
>
> =09Mine says its wrong.

As I mentioned before. There was no stealing (maybe
electricity - but we could ask alex to pay up: that'll be
0.0000001p please....)

> "BT have announced 1st Quarter pre tax profits are up
> by 56%. Which works out at =A3502 million for the first
> 3 month of the financial year alone"
>
> =09This is also wrong.  Excess profits from monopolies are also
> theft in my book.  There - confounded your stereotype ;)

Agreed. It's completely rediculous to say that stealing from
people with lots of money is ok. That's like saying that
hitting big people is ok - or killing black people.

What people need is understanding - of the issues, of each
other and of themselves. When they are confident in this
understanding, most people *relax a little* (I seem to
remember someone asking us to relax: good man! he gets it!)
after this, incidents like this are put in their correct
light.

With this understanding, maybe bt might be convinced to
charge less for something that costs them so little.

> "The cost of the electricity is sub 1p, is stealing
> this electricity from this company morally wrong? You
> may say yes, personally i would say no."
>
> =09But as you well know this is a legal convention to gain a
> prosecution under a fairly strange piece of legislation.

You're right Chris!! Maybe we could have you arrested for
breaching the peace.... as there's no direct legislation
against being an ignorant fool.

> "You may not want someone entering your house if you
> leave the door open, would you want someone to point
> out that door has been left open?"
>
> =09I would appreciate that piece of good neighbourliness, providing
> it did not involve letting me know by spray painting the message on my
> bedroom wall.  Nor would I appreciate someone jemmying my kitchen window
> in order to prove to me that I needed a stronger kitchen window.  The
> moral justification that hacking and virus mailing simply prove to us
> the need to improve security is bogus.  If you weren't trying to break
> in, I wouldn't need to live in a fortress.

You've both assumed that your machines are exactly the same
as your homes. Do you sleep in your computers? (see prior
commentary on this assumption).

>
> "Personally i would say that yes, breaking into
> someone's home machine and intruding on there privacy
> is pretty pointless, but i wouldn't say that breaking
> into a corporations business machines was morally
> wrong, depending on your reasoning for doing so..."
>
> =09Not just pointless Fizz.  There are stronger terms that would be
> appropriate.  I'd stretch to agreeing in principle that there may be a
> moral defence for some hacking, in some circumstances, onto business
> systems.

Don't be absolutely rediculous. Anything further than dos
attacks are totally unjustifyable against a company (in the
world we live in anyway). There isn't currently an excuse or
a defence for breaking into a company's systems.

> But every time I've seen the results, the intent was
clearly
> just to cause havoc.  Taking the entire network of a County Council out
> for a day through an indiscriminate virus attack, despite the best
> efforts of that organization to protect itself is not just stupid.  It
> threatens lives and wastes huge amounts of public money - your money and
> my money.  Yes, I know that the intent of hacking and virus mailing may
> be different, but their end results are often the same.

It doesn't really threaten lives. Only if the people who
work there are monumentally stupid.

> "Either way I would question whether this is really a
> matter for the legal system to deal with..."
>
> =09Better the legal system under some form of democratic control
> than self-appointed vigilantes, for all its weaknesses, and its tendency
> to favour the powerful and wealthy.

You're right - regulated morons are usually better than
unregulated morons when it comes to justice enforcement.

> Good debate.  Thank you - I'm sure its kept the board entertained...

Does this mean you wish to bring your comments to a close?
:-)

> Chris
>

Just to make you think, give this a read:

>
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