474 DEAR HACKER

474 DEAR HACKER

Every ounce of support that people like you have shown over the years has helped Kevin get through this ordeal and helped make the transition back to society a smooth one. And all of the students who brought this subject into their schools deserve our gratitude and admiration. More than a few were disciplined for daring to bring it up. Rest assured, it made a difference and we hope this serves as inspi- ration for future causes.

Dear 2600:

I always read about how you complain that the punishment for hack- ers is too high. One of your latest complaints involves a teenager who hacked some government sites. He “only” changed the index.html name to something else and he did not do any real damage. First off, there are (God forbid) people who actually really want to access the so-called “information” (actually misinformation if you ask me) from the web pages. There are kids who are stuck with term papers who need to look up some things the sites provide. There are people who want to learn about these different organizations. Second, they hit him with a $40k fine and a 15-month sentence because they want to get through his head that what he did was against the law. They could just give him maybe a couple of months in prison and a fine that his car could easily pay off, but he would just say, “That was nothing!” and go back to hacking more websites. It is not about the actual dam- age caused by the hack, it was the fact he hacked into the government computers. Those are almost as sensitive as the phone companies’ and the military’s computers.

I also want to discuss you claiming that copying the files is not stealing, therefore it is not wrong. I live by the golden rule. So you can go around hacking into other people’s computers, but what if they could get into yours? How would you feel if anybody could look in all your personal files, and they got away with it because it wasn’t stealing? That is why doctors and priests aren’t allowed to tell anybody about you. I think you need to reexamine your ethics before we all lose privacy.

JL

A C U LT U R E O F R E B E L S

Do you really believe that the only way to get someone to stop doing something is to ruin their lives? Changing the message on a website is a trivial act. It’s not the same as hacking into a sensitive system, unless the target is inept enough to keep their sensitive material and website on the same system. We understand that it’s embarrassing and inconvenient when this happens to any sort of organi- zation. But mistakes often are. When a website is hacked, it’s because the people running it made a mistake on some level. If nothing was erased or damaged, then what, besides pride, has been harmed? They don’t feel secure anymore? Well, guess what — they would have been just as insecure and many times more igno- rant if this warning hadn’t been delivered. If you listen to what hackers say, you actually have a chance of gaining some privacy. Those who refuse to listen and simply punish everyone who offends them may convince themselves that they have privacy when they have none.

Dear 2600:

I read through the section “Guilty By Association” in your 16:3 issue about people not getting jobs or losing jobs because of your magazine or just the thought of what the mag is about. I on the other hand was at work (I work for an ISP) reading 2600 and my boss saw it. He asked me if I read it often and I told him, “Every quarter — have you ever had the chance to read it?” He replied as if shocked I would even ask that question, “No!” Ten minutes later I had him hooked.

This just goes to show you, not everyone loses their job because of what they read or who they are. In fact, you could say reading 2600 can bring people together and make the world a better place all around... or something to that effect.

ph0x