On Friday 31 October 2003 09:17 am, Tango Echo wrote: > Ah! Here is the reference: http://www.hackbusters.net > While it's possible it may deal directly with his > LaBrea tar pit program, it appears to hinge around the > tar pit technology. Here's a quote from the site: > Quote: > > This section of the Illinois Criminal Code was added > on January 1, 2003 by Public Act 92-728 and defines an > "unlawful communication device" as "any communication > device which is capable of... facilitating the > disruption... of a communication service without the > express consent or express authorization of the > communication service provider..."
This response actually brings up something that has been bugging me of late about some elements of the tech community. I realize that there are a large number of clueless politicians and lawyers out there but tech people have a tendency to be just as clueless about laws and the judicial system as well. Rather than each trying to recognize the strengths of the other and work out realistic compromises, the tech community appears to be retreating with some type of egotistical attitude that politicians and lawyers are helpless to be anything other than completely clueless when it comes to tech matters and that any law is a bad law. The fact is that tortured readings of laws and paranoid ravings about the possible clueless applications of laws does not do the tech community any service. It makes us all appear to be unreasonable and unwilling to work with others to create laws that can actually be of service to us. This is more likely to make politicians and lawyers less likely to seek the tech community out for comment about proposals and will result in more clueless laws rather than less of them. I think that we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. The reality is that there are just as many clueless tech organizations as their are lawyers. For instance, the EFF came out against anti-spam laws arguing that spam is free speech and that people have a right to contact others about whatever they want to, I suppose as frequently as they want to. Well, IMO, you have the right to say anything you want but you do NOT have the right to force me to listen. There have to be practical limitations to rights or else we live under a tyranny of the individual. We also have freedom of movement in the US, at least, and if you are following someone with the intent to harass or intimidate them, there are laws that can be used to force you to stop. There need to be similar limitations to the free speech rights of email. The law that was quoted appears to be an actually well written law that can be used by an ISP to target people who abuse their servers, munge addresses to get past authorization mechanisms, spoof IP addresses and the like. Until such a time that it either becomes reasonably clear that the law doesn't work or is being abused in ways that it is not intended to be, or can be clearly shown to being open to abuse, I think that we should attempt to give it the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, we risk alienating ourselves from other people to the point that we are totally ignored. "Of course, that is just my opinion, I could be wrong." - Dennis Miller -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
