338 DEAR HACKER

338 DEAR HACKER

skill, they are immediately classified as a hacker! This results in all kinds of people claiming that they’re hackers when all they really are are attention-seekers. You will find them everywhere. There’s not a whole lot we can do about this, short of closing our doors and only letting people we already know into a particular forum. But that defeats the purpose of the forum. The best way to deal with this is for those really interested in what hacking is all about to recognize the bull for what it is and, as with most any group, look for those who really do get it. Don’t let yourself believe that they don’t exist—they always do. Just consider getting past the gar- bage one of the first tasks you must achieve.

Dear 2600: I’ve perused your magazine in the past and have been impressed with

the technical competence your articles display. I bought issue 18:4 to- day and was considering subscribing until I read your letters section, where you bash Libertarians and gun rights.

So the government is AOK in your book so long as they’re only abusing capitalists and gun owners, and leaving us poor little hackers alone? That’s some hypocrisy. I’m not going to spend money on people who are going to stab me in the back as soon as they get their own pet cause fulfilled. I’d wish you luck on your lawsuit, but why bother? You wouldn’t care if the feds bust down my door for owning a gun or not paying taxes.

vroman

We’d say we’ll miss you but it wouldn’t be true. We like for our readers to actually

be able to read what we say, a skill which obviously has eluded you. We didn’t “bash,” we questioned logic and conclusions. We do this all the time to anyone and anything we encounter. We consider such questioning to be a good thing. Never before have we been met with such hostility from so many angry people at even the mildest form of questions or criticism aimed at these topics. It only makes us want to question them even more.

OUR BIGGEST FANS

Dear 2600:

I was quite surprised to read that easyEverything, an Internet cafe, would believe they have a right to censor the pages viewed by their paying customers. I will certainly boycott them.

I am rather puzzled by your editorial comment, videlicet: “This is what happens when a big company drives all the little companies out of business with artificially low prices. You wind up playing by whatever rules they feel like setting.”

Could you explain to us, when is a company “big?” Could you please explain to us, when is a price “artificially” low? Could you please mention an example of a business which wanted to have some rules, but wasn’t able to because it was “too small?”

Under a Libertarian economic regime, corporations won’t abuse power, because they will never have accumulated significant amounts of power.

There are still a very few examples of unregulated free markets. For example, commercial fishing boats. Under the current free market conditions, no boat owner can hope to fix the wholesale price of fish. Perhaps you would prefer to shut down this dangerous example of freedom.

Did you know that Eleanor Roosevelt (yes, the wife of FDR) took out, and renewed several times, a permit to carry a concealed handgun? Yes, handgun permits in New York State are on the public record!