🚀 go-pugleaf

[I can't believe I'm actually posting to this group, which really should be
named talk.politics.computers, but here we go...]

In article <9009091647.AA23752@mindcrf.mindcraft.com> karish@mindcrf.UUCP (Chuck Karish) writes:
   Gene Spafford's contribution has been a near-hysterical attack on the

Oh, stop!  Just give it up and go home.  Spaf has *not* been "hysterical"
(either in the funny or shrill sense of the word).  He's made some
statements with which one may agree or disagree.  He's said some things
which were right and some which were wrong (and been good enough to admit it
(for which some other twit actually flamed him)).  Personally, I wish he'd
stop asking for educated legal opinions - go to misc.legal for that.

But ferchrissake can we get back to the topic at hand?

   I have two problems with his pronouncements:

   - It's not practical to solve security problems by locking up all the
     hackers, any more that we can solve drug problems by locking up
     all the users.  In both cases, there are just too many of us.

Strawman.  He's never proposed any such thing and you know it.  He may have
advocated locking up criminals, but surely you're not one to agree with
"hacker" == "criminal".

   - It's silly to put so much emphasis on `encouraging responsibility'
     before we discuss what that responsibility entails.  How can
     we even think of putting all of `them' away before we decide
     who `they' are?

OK, let's get back to basics here.  EFF stands for "Electronic Frontier
Foundation" and that's not just a cute acronym.  It embodies a set of ideas,
based on the previous-century's experiences with the Western frontier.  The
idea is that -- ideally -- the old West was a place where people more or
less respected each other, and kept pretty far apart.  But when the
population got to the point of forming towns, then they needed help keeping
law and order, so they elected sherrifs, gave them badges, and respected the
badges.  [Of course this is an idealized picture; I know that.]

As I see it, the EFF is proposing that *we* civilize the electronic frontier
in much the same way.  Our community has grown to the point where we have
the equivalent of "towns" and things occasionally get out of control.  So
there are two choices, we can elect our own sherrifs and give them the
respect they need, or we can continue screwing around until Big Brother
comes in and imposes His law'n'order on us.

Now, what I read Spaf to be saying was basically in agreement with this,
except that if we're going to be self-policing (he seemed to be claiming) we
needed to start with some kind of principles/ethics which would teach people
why the sherrifs were there and why one should respect them.  Frankly, I
don't see what's so objectionable about that.

--
--Alan Wexelblat			phone: (508)294-7485
Bull Worldwide Information Systems	internet: wex@pws.bull.com
"Politics is Comedy plus Pretense."