A document describing top-secret military plans is speech too, but I'm not allowed to give it to a foreign party (and probably not allowed to pass it around within the U.S. too). So how is source code, given that it is free speech, any different from this?
Others have already approached this point from the property angle (the gov't owns the plans, so they get to choose who's allowed to see them), but there's another direction which has been ignored: Prior restraint.
That phrase comes up repeatedly in the articles on this decision. Now, IANAL, so I may not be understanding the term correctly, but it would appear that the ban on crypto was found unconstitutional because it prohibits "speech" on certain topics without consideration of the actual content.
In the example of high-grade military lasers, the crypto ban would be the equivalent of a law stating that, because lasers have military purposes, you can't tell anyone how to make a laser - it doesn't matter what you have to say about lasers, there's a "prior restraint" in place, so it's not allowed.
But, again, IANAL. Legalese being what it is, "prior restraint" may well mean something completely different.
I think the word "cracker" is simply an attempt to come up with some sort of in-between with the media in describing somebody that breaks into systems. Most journalists don't use that term; they use the term "hacker" instead. Anyway, I think a better term to describe people that break into systems is "criminal."
Would you also argue that a person who steals things from stores, one who steals money from his company, and one who kills the innocent should all be best described as "criminals"? Personally, I find it more informative to describe them as "shoplifter", "embezzler", and "murderer". Why, then, not have a to describe those criminals who break into other people's systems?
There's a time and a place for hacking code. There's also a time and a place for good design.
As someone often described as a "hacker" who's spent a large portion of the last few weeks on design work, I see no reason to consider hacking and design to be mutually exclusive. But that's probably just an indication that, of the many different definitions of "hacker" that are out there, I don't go by the same one as you do.
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Others have already approached this point from the property angle (the gov't owns the plans, so they get to choose who's allowed to see them), but there's another direction which has been ignored: Prior restraint.
That phrase comes up repeatedly in the articles on this decision. Now, IANAL, so I may not be understanding the term correctly, but it would appear that the ban on crypto was found unconstitutional because it prohibits "speech" on certain topics without consideration of the actual content.
In the example of high-grade military lasers, the crypto ban would be the equivalent of a law stating that, because lasers have military purposes, you can't tell anyone how to make a laser - it doesn't matter what you have to say about lasers, there's a "prior restraint" in place, so it's not allowed.
But, again, IANAL. Legalese being what it is, "prior restraint" may well mean something completely different.
Would you also argue that a person who steals things from stores, one who steals money from his company, and one who kills the innocent should all be best described as "criminals"? Personally, I find it more informative to describe them as "shoplifter", "embezzler", and "murderer". Why, then, not have a to describe those criminals who break into other people's systems?
There's a time and a place for hacking code. There's also a time and a place for good design.
As someone often described as a "hacker" who's spent a large portion of the last few weeks on design work, I see no reason to consider hacking and design to be mutually exclusive. But that's probably just an indication that, of the many different definitions of "hacker" that are out there, I don't go by the same one as you do.