On Thursday, August 30, 2001, at 12:42 PM, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Can that twisted reasoning be applied to advocating the use of code to obsolete the government and then actually creating code?
'Twisted reasoning' could lead to anything, so its not too useful to use it as a constraint. A stray bayonet-mount could turn your code into assault software... That being said: There are *no* tools which are useful *only* for powering down government. File sharing tools are useful; that they also erode copyright is collateral damage. Anonymous systems are useful. That you can build AP systems, or worse, spam with them, is collateral damage. 'Damage' of course implies a value system where copyright is good and AP is bad. Side-effect is a more neutral term. At 12:49 PM 8/30/01 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Assuming your hypo, there is little protection in the "Alice talks, Bob codes" solution, if Alice and Bob associate. For a conspiracy charge, the fact that some talk and some build things is not important.
Besides, code *is* speech. Though some men who wear black dresses during office hours have trouble digesting that.