🚀 go-pugleaf

leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes:
> No. The law is exactly the opposite. Unless *you* know that the account
> is for general access, you do not have the right to use it. There are
> legitmate reasons for having a "guest" account (with no password) on a 
> system. But just as with an unlocked door, *you* are not the person
> it was left unlocked for.

  As I understand it, this isn't a discussion of what the law says.
Therefore, it should be regulated to where it belongs - in the law
books.  Certainly that's the way it is currently - that doesn't mean
that it's the way it OUGHT to be, which, I understand, is what we're
discussing (as usual).

leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) writes:
> Sorry, but it is *impossible* to use even a guest account and not be 
> using *some* system resources. A socket, if nothing else. More likely
> one of a *limited* number of ports. 

  Perhaps on the systems you use - our the systems never have that
sort of a problem - we always have enough resources (such as sockets,
etc.) to allow someone to access them, if they want to.  However, our
department has decided that it's too much of a security risk to allow
acccess via guest accounts or anonymous ftp.  Now, if you eat up our
disk space, then people might get upset - more likely, the problem
would get forwarded to me and I'd kill your files.  End of story.

> Finally, the *correct* moral standard is "it's not yours!", not "But I'm
> not hurting anything." Property rights *do* exist in c-space.

  Actually, the *correct* moral standard isn't "it's not yours!" -
that's silly.  Property rights *SHOULDN'T* exist in c-space.  It's
incredibly dumb to take up sectors and sectors of disk space just
because you can - if we had a more open system, my files could exist
on any machine - they could be so well distributed that the resulting
drain on *ANY ONE PARTICULAR SYSTEM* would be negligible.  Clearly,
the extension of property rights to cyber-space will result in a
less-than-optimal use of resources merely to satisfy stupid primate
instincts is those who have the $$$ to buy disks, ethernet
controllers, etc.  BLECH!

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