From cmeinel@techbroker.com Fri Oct 17 06:05:47 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 05:33:45 -0700 (PDT) From: "Carolyn P. Meinel" Reply-To: hh-chat@lists.secureservers.net To: hh-chat@mail.secureservers.net Subject: Re: [HH-CHAT] carolyn, title 18, and you At 03:12 PM 10/15/97 -0500, you wrote: >Ok, I'm not even going to take the time to read that. You didn't do >anything wrong man. No way is spreading someone elses e-mail illegal. >Otherwise, there wouldn't be mail lists or newsgroups or anything. Do a Web search on what happened when some hacker broke into the accounts of some celebrities on the Well. Why do you suppose that all that celebrity email is not up on anyone's public ftp server? Also check out 18 USC 2510-2520 and 18 USC 2710-2720. Still, I must admit that jericho is courageous to be willing to be the guinea pig for a challenge to the law as enforced in the Well celebrities case. Personally I wouldn't be willing to invest the tens of thousands of dollars it would cost to defend myself in a criminal felony case, which I would never recover even if I won. Plus which, jericho has just thrown away his hope of getting a security clearance or that $200K/year job he boasted he could get in computer security if he could avoid arrest for another two years. Definitely he has shown the courage of his convictions. I just hope that none of you get in over your heads following jericho. The objective of Happy Hacker is not to be an uncensored list, but rather to exercise some quality control to help people learn hacking basics that won't get them in trouble with the law. Of course you people are welcome to run an uncensored list. But you are not welcome to hijack our list, as Jesse has done with his giving you instructions on how to post to our list, to try to trick the readers into committing felonies. Of course I must also congratulate Jesse for his courage in following his convictions on what is right and what is wrong. He threw away the security consulting income he could have continued getting from me, income from me being his paid customer, and my free help in getting him started in the business of running an ISP that caters to hackers. So in conclusion, I do respect jericho and Jesse for their convictions. However, I would appreciate it if they would reconsider some basic principles of morality, such as attempting to do no harm (I refer to the use of this list to libel Bronc Buster), and respecting other people's freedom of speech -- my freedom to keep my private email private, and the right of the subscribers of the Happy Hacker list not to be spammed from outside sources. They subscribed to a MODERATED list, they have a right not to get spammed. Carolyn Meinel M/B Research -- The Technology Brokers http://techbroker.com "Inside every digital circuit, there's an analog signal screaming to get out." -- Al Kovalick, Hewlett-Packard "Hex, Bugs, Rock & Roll" -- Bruce Conklin, Space Dynamics Lab, Utah State U.