🚀 go-pugleaf

In a prominent article last week, the _Boston Globe_ sensationalized the
FSF's recent system security problems (complete with a photo of RMS).
This was on the heels of an earlier story about how someone stole a
copy of VAX/VMS sources from DEC.

The _Globe_'s article attempted to portray the trashing of unprotected
files at the FSF as an imminent threat to the Net As We Know It.

My view is that the Net As We Know It is now a city of about 1 million
occupants, and the FSF was being a little like the traditionalist who
likes to leave his car doors unlocked and his front door open for
visitors to drop by.  Alas, the city is now full of anonymous hackers
who are like common criminals.  We can no longer turn back and expect
our city to be like the village in which everyone knows everyone else.

Yet that doesn't mean we have to put up barriers at every connection
point; we can still have a free flow of information.  The mainstream
media doesn't seem to understand this, and the courts seem to understand
even less.

I dismissed this article when I first read it, but then it got brought
up yesterday in a meeting on Unix system security.  Media accounts like
these can wind up distorting impressions of People In Charge, who
base decisions on perceptions more than on actual reality.

Anyone have any ideas on how to educate People In Charge (executives,
courts, attorneys, sysadmins, and so on) that computer networks are
not inherently any different from other communications media?  I'm
particularly alarmed by a local case in which police seized someone's
business computing system, which ran a BBS among other things, during
an arrest for unrelated charges.

-rich