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I knew a guy who was arrested and sentanced to jail for one month, and 3 years probation, because he hacked into the school's library stystem. Why did he do it? Because the library had a start screen where the user could only access the card catalog over the internet, nothing else.

That's in part how I got into computers. That was when Rad Shack came out with the Trash, TRS80. The library at my school had terminals hooked up to the mainframe for the county's schools. With it students could search for colleges based on different criteria and that's all they were supposed to be used for. But a few of us figured out how to get out of the search program and were able to explore the system. Then I met some students from other high schools that were doing the same and we were able to come up with a way to chat with each other. Between this and programming in Basic on the Trash80 made me decide to major in Computer Engineering in college, it was between CE and Marine Science/Biology. I would of loved it if I could have combined the two somehow though.

And what about all the script kiddies? The ones who have no brains but found a place to download some tool to hack with? What should be done with them? If a script kidde uses a tool a hacker programmed, and that script kidde causes damage, who is responsible? Should the hacker be arrested for releasing the tool?

If anyone it's the script kiddies the authorities need to crack down on.

In my opinion, a hacker is a derogatory term. They are people who have little respect for others rights.

Falling for the mass media's distortion of what a hacker is. With how reporters use the words "hack" and "hacker" I wonder how they would like it if people started calling them hacks, which back in the early 1900s writers and reporters were called. I tell you if you really want to know what a computer hacker is you need to read Steve Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Here's an excert from an interview with Richard Stallman:

DB: Is this what might be meant by the phrase the "Hacker Ethic?"

RS: Somewhat. Indeed, the hacker ethic, I should explain first of all who hackers are. In 1971 when I joined the staff of the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab, all of us who helped develop the operating system software, we called ourselves hackers. We were not breaking any laws, at least not in doing the hacking we were paid to do. We were developing software and we were having fun. Hacking refers to the spirit of fun in which we were developing software. The hacker ethic refers to the feelings of right and wrong, to the ethical ideas this community of people had -- that knowledge should be shared with other people who can benefit from it, and that important resources should be utilized rather than wasted. Back in those days computers were quite scarce, and one thing about our computer was it would execute about a third-of-a-million instructions every second, and it would do so whether there was any need to do so or not. If no one used these instructions, they would be wasted. So to have an administrator say, "well you people can use a computer and all the rest of you can't," means that if none of those officially authorized people wanted to use the machine that second, it would go to waste. For many hours every morning it would mostly go to waste. So we decided that was a shame. Anyone should be able to use it who could make use of it, rather than just throwing it away. In general we did not tolerate bureaucratic obstructionism. We felt, "this computer is here, it was bought by the public, it is here to advance human knowledge and do whatever is constructive and useful." So we felt it was better to let anyone at all use it -- to learn about programming, or do any other kind of work other than commercial activity.

Both your arguments apply equally well to killing humans.

Ah, but that would be a most dangerous game, wouldn't it?

Living here in the Bay Area is basically like living in some Bizaro version of a small town in the South -- any deviation from the rigidly defined social conventions ("white man always bad -- anti-government cause always good," etc.) is viewed as anti-social behavior of the most deviant order.

To call any of them "liberal," in the sense of being open to change, new ideas, etc. is just plain wrong. Their de jour classification may be liberal, but their de facto behavior is about as limited and rigid as the town elders in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery .

I'll burn some karma here, and even agree that there may be some trolling intent in the statement, but the thing is, he's right.
I mean, WTF?
Not to mention Schools.
So, he might be trolling, but he has a point.
(-1, Troll) + (+1, insightful) = +1, Funny?

Note to moderators : This is an example of irony

Penalties for violation of these laws include increased participation by parents in juvenile proceedings; financial responsibility for restitution payments and court costs; financial responsibility for detention, treatment, and supervisory costs; participation in treatment, counseling, or other diversion programs; and criminal responsibility and possible jail time for parents found negligent in their supervision.

One they day will get a clue and start hunting down the users instead.

"I had to invent a new animal to hunt,...".

PETA doesn't care. Why do you? We are the most dangerous predator on the planet.

The song refers to irony of situation.

You can read it here The Lottery if you want to bring back some old memories.

Perhaps, but not serious enough to find an author for the quote. There are other serious hobbyists as well, astrologists for instance, whose inegrity towards their pastime I wouldn't doubt. Whether they are correct or not, I wouldn't use their newsgroup discussions as final authority on their subject matter. I'd much rather use them as a source of clues for further research.

Well, thats kind of tricky without showing you every recorded statement by Franklin.

No, only where it is correctly attributed to someone else would be sufficient. Also, keep in mind that it may simply be something that Franklin had said to someone in conversation and he didn't write it down himself. And, the person who it may have been said to documented it, but may not have correctly dated the quote and placed it in the proper context. On the other hand, it may be an identical situation, but Jefferson being the speaker, rather than Franklin. The point is, until the quote's author is identified, to claim that Franklin didn't say it is as invalid as saying he did.

With that said, the sentiment of the quote has me leaning towards the idea that it may be a Founding Father, or one of their close contemporaries, as the original author. However, I suppose the phrasing could lead someone to believe that the original quote, sentiment, or phrase may have been altered by someone else at a later time.

Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Washington, or any other Founding Father could have easily said it, or something like it. As students of ancient societies, including Rome, they were aware of the single danger in a democracy (that a populist vote will place a tyrant in charge who will then turn to oppress the people, whether a minority or the majority), and the second amendment indicates the necessity to protect against that danger. This is not to say that Jefferson and Franklin weren't for the populist view, they were as they were also students of American Indians and their ways (where morals were controlled by society without codified laws, but with what the majority considered appropriate).

Alternatively, if you can find either (i) a constitutional scholar who believes that Franklin did say it or (ii) a citation from Franklins writings where it, or anything like it appears, I'll concede.

No need to concede as we're not in contention. I can't claim he did say it. I just pointed out that no one seems to be able to prove he didn't. Without that proof, such as finding an instance of it prior to Franklin's birth, he may or may not have said it. I think it would be safe to say that if he wrote it, someone would've eventually dug it up if the matter was of great importance to that person and if he had the resources to do so. Whether such an attempt and circumstance has occured is also a mystery.

As for finding sources, it may be beyond either of our abilities. However, I can point out that the sentiment of protecting the populace from the single danger in a Democracy can be traced to the Founding Fathers in this chapter from Johansen's scholarly work and this well written allegory. Notice how wolves and sheep appear important to Jefferson as metaphors and simile for the populace and their governments in the sixth chapter from the Forgotten Founders. This may be a more recent edition of that book.

This is not to say that Franklin or Jefferson did say the words of the quote, only that they, and their friends probably wouldn't have disagreed with it. However, it doesn't vindicate associating those words with a person unless the person actually said them.

Notice how easy it is to find an at

These.

Going to read an article about anti-spam legislation and being bombarded with pop-up ads

Let's see: sport, self-defense, revolution against an oppressive government. Those are three good ones. Go study a little history. Without citizen-owned guns in the hands of Minutemen we wouldn't have a U.S.A. Same applies to many other countries.

How are these good reasons to own a gun? Because it's fun? My neighbors dog was accidentally shot by some guy hunting for sport. People get injured in hunting accidents all of the time. Why was some guys fun worth a person or even a dogs life? As far as needing to own guns in the US, the point of the guns was to help us set up a government where the guns no longer needed to be used. I'm not saying that in countries with oppressive regimes guns should be outlawed. I'm saying that once the country completes its revolution and is firmly governed by the rule of law, guns pose more a threat to the residents than a defense to outside invasion or way of motivating the government.

I'd rather have more decent people with guns so that they outnumber the criminals with guns. Then criminals would think twice about using their gun.

Think about it though, if no one had guns this wouldn't even be an issue. If what your saying is that right, now criminals don't think twice about using their guns that is all the more reason to improve gun control.

But your point is moot, because if someone wants to kill someone, they will do it, whether they do it with a legitimately-obtained gun, a stolen gun, a black market gun, a homemade gun, or a knife.

You tell me to go look up facts and yet you say something like that with no proof to back it up. People do things because it's convenient . A gun makes killing more convenient. If you couldn't buy sniper rifles would we have to deal with the whole Washington D.C. sniper or not? If it was some guy who had to run up to you and stab you it is a lot less likely that he would have gotten away or not been identified. How about drive-by shootings? I don't know how many times I've read articles about people being killed in their homes or on the street due to stray bullets from drive-by shootings. That wouldn't happen if the person had a knife. How about Columbine, could those kids have walked into the school and killed 13 other people if they didn't have guns? We all know they couldn't have.

You make up "facts" to try to support your already unfounded argument.

I'm sorry I didn't feel like wasting time looking up obvious facts but if you want me to here they are: here, here, here, and here.

For "gun" you could substitute "car," "computer," "house," "baseball bat," and a billion other things. Remember what happens when you assume. A piano could possibly fall on your head tomorrow. Does that make it a valid point?

Obviously you're right and I'm just a complete idiot. Wait, a second, I'm having an idea . . . a car, a computer, and a baseball bat can't fire rounds of ammunition into people. That makes them slightly safer than the average gun.

Owning a gun is a pointless risk. Our government generally does what it can to eliminate pointless risks. Our cars all have chips in them that make them top out at 155 MPH, medication has safety caps, and cigarettes are illegal until you turn 18. As I said before, I don't need a gun to defend myself and I certainly don't want to trust that everyone else who buys a gun to be responsible enough to not kill someone or themselves with it. There is more than one way to the problem of gun related violence and deat (like social programs) but it seems like the most obvious and easy thing to try first would be to reduce the number of guns that exist in this country. It may not be the permanent solution to stopping murders in this country but it would certainly be a decent start.

Maybe this is a little more on my mind because of the DC sniper, my wife and I were just talking about this short story a few days ago, bringing back memories of elementary school.

"Traditions don't have to make sense... that's why they're traditions."

Yes, but traditions can, and often tend to be, just plain stupid. Read The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, it's rather thought provoking for a high school level short story.

Leiningen versus the Ants all over again.