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by conductor 4794 days ago
I admit Stuxnet was a bad analogy to black hat hacking. But either is the analogy of hacking into a server and physically trespassing into a private property.

The main goal of my comments is to object to the opinion that hacking is somewhat comparable to physical break and enter actions. This is an age where one can find himself in prison for tens of years for hacking and getting access to information (the prospects of Aaron) or even for IP violations, as it were a murder or rape.

Being in an underground hackers crew is much fun and possibilities to learn things for young men who are smart and different than their friends. Those guys and gals are the future top-class engineers at Google and other IT giants and I want them to continue hacking and growing personally and professionally, not rotting in the prison.

2 comments

You keep getting buried because you've hitched your wagon to the wrong horse. Your core argument seems to be that punishment for hacking is often disproportionate to the crime committed.

For example, poorly written laws make even simple port scanning a risky activity. I agree that this is ridiculous, but you needn't defend HTP here in order to take that position. If anything, HTP are to blame for the overreaction from policy makers. They are having a very difficult time distinguishing between mischief and mayhem.

The law should take context in to account. If you were caught exploring an old, abandoned warehouse, you might end up with a misdemeanor trespass charge (hopefully), but if you're caught probing a corporate server, the current climate seems to dictate that you'll land a felony in short order. You've got groups like HTP to thank for that because of their extortion activities and willingness to leverage the well being of innocent people in their trivial games.

> Being in an underground hackers crew is much fun and possibilities to learn things for young men who are smart and different than their friends. Those guys and gals are the future top-class engineers at Google and other IT giants and I want them to continue hacking and growing personally and professionally, not rotting in the prison.

Or the next members of the many criminal syndicates on the internet who steal/harass/blackmail with little regard of the consequences.