[themusicgod1]

> While this does display narcissism, I think you're misinterpreting "we are not criminals". I think in context this person is saying that "hacking" in the context of hackathons is not what movie hackers do, breaking into networks and stealing sensitive information.

"Criminals" do things like try to watch DVDs on Linux. "Criminals" use encryption without giving the US government a key[2]. "Criminals" design platforms that allow people to share information conveniently[3].

When you have people, even in 2015, in positions of power over technology law and policy who have never even used email[4], we still have to worry that the US government, and other governments who are similarly populated by such illiterates will make people who want to develop, learn and share information about technology "criminals"[5].

This isn't new, either[6]: During the duration of the US involvement of the great war (1917-18) amateur wireless equipment was not legal to operate. Instead of fully legalizing it afterwards, they brought in regulation to control who had the ability to use what kind of equipment -- in effect taking a generation of people who were tinkering with technology and taking the commons that was the public airwaves and slowly beginning the process of partitioning it into the state we have today, where iHeartMedia owns 850 radio stations, wireless use is just now with wifi and cellphones beginning to be something the public 'just does'...but only when they connect to large company networks(eg comcast).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen [2] http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/01/16/obama-goes-record-en... [3] kim.com [4] http://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-says-he-has-ne... [5] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html [6] https://plus.google.com/105395547687614433866/posts/WHHYbLcG...

[adrusi]

Yeah. But this isn't what most "Hackathon Hackers" mean by "We are not criminals". It's also not what OP was referring to when he criticize lack of regard for civil liberties and tolerance of "unfair business practices".

I agree with most of what you said, but as I understand you are arguing that radio should have been left unregulated? Wireless wouldn't work on the scale we use it today if it weren't for these regulations. Or maybe today we would get by, working around interference, but 15 years ago we wouldn't have had the tech. I'm sure there are better methods of regulation than partitioning the spectrum, but radio anarchy is not one of them.

[themusicgod1]

> 15 years ago we wouldn't have had the tech

There was a whole community of dare I say hackers who were ready to innovate around spectrum crowding at the dawn of the 20th century. They were systematically removed from participating in radio technology, except as passive consumers. Anarchy was working just fine up until then.

With all the power that Clearchannel has had, they could have been helping to be part of that solution. Instead they've been allowed to be lazy, and reap the benefits of a monopoly without contributing back in terms of advancement on this problem.

Knowing whether or not they could have been able to do so is of course an open question and as we learn how to do it right we can extrapolate whether they were capable of it. We could have had Frequency-hopping spread spectrum deployed decades earlier had the right mind been put to the task, and had patents not gotten in the way.