| In your jewellery store example I think it may be reasonable to prosecute the person. In increasing levels of seriousness: 1. The person is walking by the store and, in the course of their everyday activity, sees that the door is ajar; they then contact the owner. This seems fine to me. 2. The person is walking by the store, sees the door ajar, and then altering their normal activities decide to actively test the door to see if they can break into the store; they can and then contact the owner. This seems dodgy to me. 3. The person chooses to visit each jewellery store in town to see if any have a door ajar. This definitely seems inappropriate. The reason I come down opposed to the person in the second example is two-fold. Firstly, ignoring intent, where do you draw the line on an acceptable level of 'break the security' activity? - Thinking that the door is ajar and pushing on it? - Seeing that the lock is vulnerable and picking it? - Finding a ground floor window and breaking through it with a brick? The resolution I choose is that if you have gone out of your way to subvert the security of my stuff without my consent then you have crossed the line. Gray is black. Second, I don't care about your intent. Every security system will break at some point, and so I view the existence of doors and locks as mainly being about roughly outlining the boundaries that I expect to be respected. If I want to improve my security then I'll hire someone to advise me on how to do it. If I come home tonight to find a stranger who has broken into my house in order to prove that it's possible then (1) I already know, and (2) they have just caused the harm which they are nominally trying to protect me against. |