Adobe's Teeth. (Was: Re: [free-sklyarov] Re: Rallies on Monday)

[Sampo Syreeni]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2001, Black Unicorn wrote:

>I would be amused to see one of these cloistered techies in a real
>encounter with police, who recognize that the best legal argument they
>have on the street is a good whack to opposing counsel's head and that
>about the most serious ramifications of this might be that the protestor
>gets off scott free after 48 hours in holding with the gang bangers.

True enough. It's easy to say things about policy when you don't have a
personal interest.

But don't forget that cypherpunks are doing a good job of implanting a 2nd
Amendment, civil disobedience and personal morality positive views into
anyone who comes by. It might well be that cops acting unconscionably will
soon enough encounter deeply cypherpunkly offenders, who just blow the cop
away if the going unjustifiably gets rough.

>Adobe's co-founder is easily spooked and Adobe has had it's run-ins with
>violence before.  This event is well publicized and Adobe knows its coming.
>Draw your own conclusions about how Adobe might prepare.  What would you do
>in Adobe's place?

What they do, of course. That just means anyone opposed to their game had
better prepare even better. How does one prepare for ideology driven hackers
stealing one's intellectual assets? Guaranteeably anonymous slander, and
inside rumour? Mass protests numbering in the tens of thousands? Snipers? A
van-full of petroleum+nitrates parked outside one's office, or home, or
one's children's school? Cleverly utilized discharges of nerve gas?

I certainly do not advocate that sort of response, but that is what
escalation is all about. It naturally happens when the going gets tough
enough. Corporations better not escalate, or they will come up with
something like the G8 protests, only with far less resources to combat the
trouble.

>Exercise your right to free speech.  Do it carefully.

Not carefully. Wisely.

Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy at iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front