134 DEAR HACKER

134 DEAR HACKER

Dear 2600:

I am so glad that you publish your magazine. Especially for poignant editorials such as “Not in Our Name” from the Spring 2003 issue. I feel such an affinity to the concepts and ideas expressed. Especially the importance of the fact that “We may not like the message, we may not agree with it, but if what we allege to stand for is to have any value, we have to do everything possible to ensure it isn’t silenced.”

I am an idealist but I see some dangerous holes in the above stance. For example, I volunteer for a nonprofit media group that has a public website where anyone can anonymously post news and anyone can anonymously post comments.

Recently we had a lot of hateful speech and threats of all sorts to- ward women and men who post to the site. This open board got so full of altered and reposted photographs, violent threats, anti-Semitic comments, anti-gay comments, etc. that many posters felt physically in danger and didn’t want to use the site anymore. Other concerns such as being dragged into a criminal investigation by the police as well as investigation and monitoring by the government feed my nightmares.

The group decided to post a letter about why we thought this was wrong and removed the open board posting on the website. We all regretted doing this and promised to return the open posting ASAP.

How can these practical concerns be addressed and not silence any message whether we agree with the content or not? Are there any limits? Is true equality exploitable?

Your thoughts would be really helpful. Brian

You are not silencing anyone by removing the open board posting scheme. You’re simply not playing host to opinions you find offensive or destructive by permitting them on your site. We find that sometimes people feel the only way to be fair is to allow everyone to say whatever they want in any forum without any sort of control. All that ensures is complete chaos and the eventual destruction of whatever com- munity has been built.

THE CHALLENGES OF LIFE AS A HACKER

It’s essential to not restrict expression and opinions in our society. But that doesn’t mean you have to allow others to destroy what you’re trying to do. For instance, if we printed everything that was sent to us, the message of 2600 would soon be lost in a lot of gibberish. Are we denying freedom of speech to those whose words we choose not to print? Not at all—they still have their freedom of speech. If their words were made illegal by the government or if they were otherwise silenced, that would be a clear abridgment of their rights which would be of concern to anyone regardless of whether or not they agreed with the speech itself.

All that open board posting does is dilute what it is you want to put out and make it so much easier for hostile forces to shut you down. What you offer is not a finite resource. Others can run their own boards and websites. Now if you were a broad- caster using public airwaves that are most definitely finite, then you would have the obligation to give others access. At least in theory. The way things have gone in our society lately, that freedom has been pretty much bought and sold. But that’s another story.

Dear 2600:

I was sitting at home the other day, minding my own business, and the phone rang. I went to pick it up and it was the trademark telemarketer nuisance call. As some of you may remember from the past few issues, there have been some articles that describe how telemarketers work. Occasionally telemarketers’ computers will call more people than they have available telemarketers. When this happens, they hang up as soon as somebody picks up. That’s called a nuisance call. What was interesting this time was that Caller ID actually reported a number, rather than “Anonymous” or “Unavailable.” When I called it back, it said something like “Code 1563” and promptly hung up. I didn’t write down the exact code, but it was something to that effect. I was curious so I called it back again and it just rang. Does anybody know exactly what this may be? I’m assuming it was a telemarketer. However, it was odd that it actually gave me a number on the Caller ID. The phone number was 702.889.08XX. It was a harassing phone call, so I have no hesitation about posting the number.

Patrick