[belltaco]

>A journalist giving someone else a document that explain how a particular brand of safe can be cracked is not illegal. Handing someone knowledge is not illegal.

Terrible analogy. Assange obtained the actual NTLM hash from Manning of the user they were trying to crack the password of and attempted to crack it with the full knowledge that it was a top secret US military login. He wasn't sending her generic knowledge on how to crack NTLM passwords.

>Actually cracking the safe is illegal.

Attempting to crack a safe that you don't have authorization to, with the intent of stealing things from it is also illegal even if you failed to crack it.

Just like going around the neighborhood trying the doors of homes or pulling handles of cars is illegal.