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Round 3 Of TAP Forum By ESR, Lessig, Et Al.

Posted by Hemos on from the good-reading dept.

Iambic Pentametor writes "Back in April, Slashdot had a story covering the first two rounds of a forum at The American Prospect between Eric S. Raymond, Lawrence Lessig, Nathan Newman, Jeff A. Taylor, and Jonathan Band. The third round is here. ESR's latest is pretty inspiring and despite some squabbling, each of the combatants make some good points."

1 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. I think ESR did miss Lessig's point by Jerf · · Score: 5
    I think ESR did miss Lessig's points about laws concerning IP and contracts mattering more then it might seem. While hackers may route around damage to freedom, it'll do no good when there are no safe havens... and we as a species are working towards that goal with all available speed.

    While you may never corral those last few hackers, the ones who write FreeNet and change it in the face of all attacks and figure out how to disguise it yet again so it evades the law this week... so what? Freedom for the .01% is not freedom at all.

    I agree with Lessig; it's dangerous to assume hackers uber alle. Barring a large scale move out into space, the policians still have a lot of power here. There's no natural law of the universe that the they can't destroy all the routers of the world, confiscate computers, and kill the ringleaders of any resistance movement. You think they need us? Those who would fight freedom this hard would have no problem moving the world back to feudalism, as long as they are in power.

    Do not underestimate your enemies. They like it when you do that.