hacker != cracker (Re: Swartz, Weev & radical libertarian lexicon)

[rysiek]

Hi there,

/me has his monthly "let's reclaim the word 'hacker'" drive

Dnia wtorek, 7 stycznia 2014 23:15:52 Adam Back pisze:
> On Tue, Jan 07, 2014 at 01:48:59PM -0800, coderman wrote:
> >> Yes, annoying though that may be to those of us who were called hackers
> >> before that became a bad thing. But we're outnumbered thousands-to-one,
> >> and
> >> we're just not going to win that language war.
> >
> >use the term "independent security researcher",
> >
> >  your legal counsel will thank you!
> 
> A cryptographically secure pseudonym would probably work even better.  Weev
> didnt actually do anything wrong that I could see, by any sane
> interpretation of even something as egregious as CFAA and he's serving 41
> months.  A lawyer is a last resort, step #1 is not identifying yourself even
> for non-malicous research I suspect.

I draw different conclusion here -- people do not understand hackers (in the 
original, non-pejorative meaning of the term), and hence are afraid of 
anything "hacker-y". Weev went to jail not because he did something illegal, 
but because the jury was convinced he's an "evil hacker", and that they need 
to "send a signal".

If we keep moving back, at some point we'll have nowhere to go.

So instead, we should get people to understand and not be afraid. Show the 
value to the society (and there is a lot of value in hacking!), and always 
make clear distinction between hacking (which both Aaron and Weev had done 
quite a bit of, and I am not referring to their court cases and alleged 
transgressions) and committing crimes by means of a computer network or 
electronic device.

As an added bonus, once we get to a point where everybody understands that 
crime is a crime, regardless of tools used in connection with it, we might 
finally get some *sane* laws around that topic -- instead of laws that make 
one get a smaller sentence if they steal stuff with a crowbar instead of 
downloading it via Teh Tubes.

-- 
Pozdr
rysiek
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 316 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/attachments/20140107/ca27c9ce/attachment-0002.sig>