Now, there are some people in this discussion crying out for tougher policing on the internet, saying this is just like any other crime.
While I agree that it is a crime, I would like to point out that eliminating internet crime is incredibly dangerous. Constant attacks are what motivate us to create better, more open systems. On the other hand, an artificial safety vacuum leads to ignorant homogeneity and cataclysmic vulnerabilities.
Maybe some of you guys have forgotten what the security scene was like in the mid '90's, but I haven't. The only reason we're where we are today (with apache leading the market) is because of white hats, gray hats, and, yes, black hats.
The technically illiterate people out there look at a story like this and wet their pants. Although I do see the criminial element of it in the individual case, as part of a larger trend, I see this as reassurement (to think in terms of evolution, for a moment) that the environment is imposing security and technical skill as selection criteria.
Although I agree this case is a pretty clear-cut example of criminal revenge, I'd rather see the computer crime laws loosened in general. They always say (rightly) that it's not the criminals that you hear about on the evening news that you ought to worry about...it's the ones you never hear about at all. I fear that any kind of regulation or policing on the internet is just going to make the flock all the fatter.
Yeah, and that time I pounded my desk with my fist of annoyance? That was a low-tech earthquake. I just left out the automation!
If you go through all of high school without at least one token subversive act or outburst, there's something WRONG with you. Kids are going to turn the phones upside down. They are going to put the chalk in the erasers. They're going to putz with the computers. Get over it.
The lab monitor should have given him a talking to and let the damn thing rest.
The modern scientific community's attitude is a lot like my 8 year old brother at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Guard: If you touch that sarcophagus, I will throw you and your mother out of the museum.
Brother: *eyes sarcophagus*
Guard: Just step back from the sarcophagus. Don't touch it. I will throw you out.
Mother: DONT DO IT. He's serious.
Brother: *raises hand* *looks guard in the eye*
Brother: *touches sarcophagus*
Guard: *escorts my brother and mother out of the museum*
True story.
I realize you mitigated your statement through a lot of "kind of goes against"s and "you could look at it as if"s, but the underlying idea is wrong.
Google is incapable of behaving in a socialist manner since corporations are inherently capitalist entities. Socialism is, among many things, a unification of the means to produce and the ownership thereof. Just because Google frequently acts in the public good does not mean that the capitalist interest does not exist, but rather that it is allying itself with said good for its own benefit.
You could argue that one may transcend capitalism through enlightened awareness of whatever intersection may exist between the public and private goods (and many would say that there is an enormous intersection, if not a total unity), but trying to make a monied interest uninterested in its own monies is like trying to make water not wet.
The word freedom does not "imply total freedom." "Freedom" and "total freedom" are different concepts, most notably due to the presence of "total" in front of "freedom" in the second one.
"A government based on freedom" is one like the United States (at least in theory), which believes that its fundamental purpose is to safeguard freedoms, rather than to grant it. This is a paradigm shift from a lot of other political beliefs which hold that the government grants freedoms to its citizens.
Look, there are a lot of things in its constitution that the United States does not live up to, but there's a very, very real difference between the principles outlined in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and Anarchy.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, there are some people in this discussion crying out for tougher policing on the internet, saying this is just like any other crime.
While I agree that it is a crime, I would like to point out that eliminating internet crime is incredibly dangerous. Constant attacks are what motivate us to create better, more open systems. On the other hand, an artificial safety vacuum leads to ignorant homogeneity and cataclysmic vulnerabilities.
Maybe some of you guys have forgotten what the security scene was like in the mid '90's, but I haven't. The only reason we're where we are today (with apache leading the market) is because of white hats, gray hats, and, yes, black hats.
The technically illiterate people out there look at a story like this and wet their pants. Although I do see the criminial element of it in the individual case, as part of a larger trend, I see this as reassurement (to think in terms of evolution, for a moment) that the environment is imposing security and technical skill as selection criteria.
Although I agree this case is a pretty clear-cut example of criminal revenge, I'd rather see the computer crime laws loosened in general. They always say (rightly) that it's not the criminals that you hear about on the evening news that you ought to worry about...it's the ones you never hear about at all. I fear that any kind of regulation or policing on the internet is just going to make the flock all the fatter.
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Yeah, and that time I pounded my desk with my fist of annoyance? That was a low-tech earthquake. I just left out the automation!
If you go through all of high school without at least one token subversive act or outburst, there's something WRONG with you. Kids are going to turn the phones upside down. They are going to put the chalk in the erasers. They're going to putz with the computers. Get over it.
The lab monitor should have given him a talking to and let the damn thing rest.
The modern scientific community's attitude is a lot like my 8 year old brother at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Guard: If you touch that sarcophagus, I will throw you and your mother out of the museum. Brother: *eyes sarcophagus* Guard: Just step back from the sarcophagus. Don't touch it. I will throw you out. Mother: DONT DO IT. He's serious. Brother: *raises hand* *looks guard in the eye* Brother: *touches sarcophagus* Guard: *escorts my brother and mother out of the museum* True story.
I realize you mitigated your statement through a lot of "kind of goes against"s and "you could look at it as if"s, but the underlying idea is wrong. Google is incapable of behaving in a socialist manner since corporations are inherently capitalist entities. Socialism is, among many things, a unification of the means to produce and the ownership thereof. Just because Google frequently acts in the public good does not mean that the capitalist interest does not exist, but rather that it is allying itself with said good for its own benefit. You could argue that one may transcend capitalism through enlightened awareness of whatever intersection may exist between the public and private goods (and many would say that there is an enormous intersection, if not a total unity), but trying to make a monied interest uninterested in its own monies is like trying to make water not wet.
The word freedom does not "imply total freedom." "Freedom" and "total freedom" are different concepts, most notably due to the presence of "total" in front of "freedom" in the second one.
"A government based on freedom" is one like the United States (at least in theory), which believes that its fundamental purpose is to safeguard freedoms, rather than to grant it. This is a paradigm shift from a lot of other political beliefs which hold that the government grants freedoms to its citizens.
Look, there are a lot of things in its constitution that the United States does not live up to, but there's a very, very real difference between the principles outlined in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and Anarchy.
USE ARTICLES IN YOUR COMMENTS! Where is the article? Star Trek Spoof is the Top Finnish Movie! Does this piss anyone else off?
Perhaps he didn't get his Divine Shield off in time? http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=642 Stupid paladin...