Académique Documents
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*/
By John Schwartz
Typed by Mortimer
But the crackdown has spurred Kapor and such industry legends as
Apple Computer cofounder Steve Wozniak to band together behind the new
generation. Their goal: to protect the flow of information and innovation
that helped bring about the personal-computer revolution.
Within the next few weeks they will officially announce a new
foundation, yet unnamed, intended to combat computer phobia and provide
legal aid for some of those snared in the dragnet. The computer-rights
movement has gained support on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Patrick Leahy,
Democrat of Vermont, has planned upcoming hearings on how far law
enforcement should go. While advocating some punishment for lawbreakers,
Leahy adds, "We cannot unduly inhibit the inquisitive 13-year-old who, if
left to experiment today, may tomorrow develop the telecommunications or
computer technology to lead the United States into the 21st century.
He represents our future and our best hope to remain a technologically
competitive nation."
/* I had to have three people pin me while one beat me senseless in order to
stop laughing after reading this! This is the same person who (with help
from [Cr]Apple Computers) is advocating laws in Europe (and soon the USA)
to OUTLAW all hardware, software, and publications that could in ANY WAY
aid or instruct a person in breaking copy protection (which is a ridiculous
concept in the first place) or altering commercial software. This means no
Central Points Option Boards. This means that a PC-Magazine article telling
you how to twiddle a bit would land you in jail. This means that a copy of
'Gamemaster,' Copy-II [insert computer type here, e.g. Copy-II-PC], Option
Board control software, or character editors would be outlawed. */
/* After Men In Black show up with pistols pulled and threaten them. It's
happened. */
/* It already has. Large, public, dial-up UNIX boxes have been seized as
'evidence' and never returned without being used in trials because 6K of
their 15-megs-a-night of Internet mail happened to be that rewritten E911
leak. Interestingly enough, the document, supposedly valued at ~$79K,
contains mostly public information and certainly NOTHING that would enable
a so-called 'hacker' to gain access to the system. */
...she speaks approvingly of one former hacker who told agents that he had
quit as word spread of the raids. "That's not, to me, a constitutionally
suspect chilling effect," she says. "That's what we in law enforcement
call a 'deterrent'."
/* This is very true. If the people out there would use their knowledge for
'bad,' the Internet would go to pot. Corporate systems would crash daily
and NOT because of a root spilling his coffee on a circuitboard. */
Kapor, captain of his high school math team, has thrown in his lot
with the nerds. He and his allies are attempting nothing less than to
keep the ideals of the computer revolution alive. They hope to turn
around a public increasingly resentful of computers and the people who
are adept at using them. "You've got a lot of people who don't understand
the present," Barlow says, "and in the absence of understanding, /* and in
the face of intense government propaganda */ default to fear...The real
disease here is future shock." Somebody has to stick up for the pencil-
necked and the pimply. Luckily for them, the men who have chosen to do so
are filthy rich.
The word "hacker" once meant any dedicated programmer; lately it's
taken on a criminal tone. Some events that got us from there to here:
September 1970: John Draper makes free calls with a cereal-box whistle
that matches AT&T's tones. Hence his nom de hack: Captain
Crunch. [Wasn't it Cap'n Crunch?]
1986: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act passes, toughening police powers
against hackers.
June 1990: Steve Jackson Games is on the verge of going out of business. When
the 'public slavedrivers-*, er, SERVANTS' seized their systems they
also seized work-in-progress (GURPS Cyberpunk RPG modules) and the
food from the fridge. Definitely solid evidence there.
*/
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