From: mc/G=Brad/S=Hicks/OU=0205925@mhs.attmail.com
Subject: Filthy Lucre (was Re- EFFec
Originator: daemon@eff.org
Organization: EFF mail-news gateway
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:48:09 GMT

Date: 10/2/92   4:20 PM
Subj: Filthy Lucre (was Re: EFFector Online 3.06)
 
Mike, some of the EFF's staffers get paid for what they do.  Shall we
infer from your remarks that this means that they don't think that what
they do is both morally right and important?  That if they demand money to
do it, they obviously aren't doing it because they think it's right?  No,
it means that that's their JOB, because that's what they do for a living,
because if they weren't making a living from it, they wouldn't have the
time and luxury to do it.
 
Let's review the "case" against the Hannover hackers, shall we?  Why do we
"know" that what they did was morally wrong?
 
BECAUSE THEY WERE BREAKING INTO COMPUTERS?  Maybe.  This is the issue that
I think Bruce Sterling was wrestling with, and trying to come up with a
way of saying that maybe, just maybe, sometimes, maybe sometimes, breaking
into computers is morally right, or something in between, but somehow he
was sure that this wasn't one of those times.  When the Nixon
administration was secretly bombing Cambodia, or the Reagan administration
secretly supplying arms to Iranian fundamentalists and Nicaraguan death
squads, I for one certainly would have looked on someone hacking their
PROFS system and their voice mailboxes for evidence as doing something
morally right.  But I admit that this is an area where reasonable people
can disagree.
 
BECAUSE THEY WERE BREAKING INTO COMPUTERS ON THE INTERNET?  As best I
understand it now, this is Cliff Stoll's current position; that hacking
anything over the Internet abuses the trust that makes the Internet
possible, and if it's allowed to continue, then site administrators will
stop connecting to the Internet.  Personally, I think that it proves that
either the Internet is insecure (I don't think so, not per se) or that
site administrators who put their machines on the Internet are often
incompetent (which I think is demonstrably true), and either one of those
are problems that need to be addressed with or without Pengo and Hagbard.
But anyway, if it's moral to hack a target via the phone, I think it's
moral to hack it via the Internet.
 
BECAUSE THEIR TARGET WAS THE UNITED STATES' MILITARY?  I suspect that
residents of Cambodia, Viet Nam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and
others may find that sufficient reason to =justify= it.  Additionally,
non-Americans may find it reasonable to see how trading THOSE PARTICULAR
SECRETS to the US's enemies may have qualified as maintaining the nuclear
balance of power in the light of American "first use" and SDI policies.
If it's ever moral to hack, hacking to save all vertebrate life on earth
from nuclear war must qualify as one of the better reasons.
 
BECAUSE THEY GOT PAID?  This is the position that Bruce Sterling and you
have staked out.  But I don't see how it's morally defensible as any kind
of an absolute; see my first paragraph in this message for a
counter-example.  On the contrary, if something is moral to do, then I
think it's moral to do it for a living.
 
BECAUSE THEY GOT PAID BY THE SOVIET UNION?  This one could be a good
reason to look down on them, particularly if you believe (as I do, believe
it or not) that the Soviet Union truly was an evil empire.  But I think it
possible that reasonable human beings could think that it was worth
hacking on American nuclear weapons placement in Europe and SDI even if
the hack was being paid for by the evil empire, and being a moral
relativist myself, I try to give such people the benefit of the doubt.
 
BECAUSE THEY TOOK PART OF THEIR PAY IN DRUGS?  As far as I'm concerned,
that the Hannover hackers got some of their pay in barter rather than cash
does not make what they did any more or less moral.  If it was moral to
get paid in cash, it was moral to get paid in any other commodity.  (If
you think that drugs are always morally wrong, then say so.  If so, then
wasn't it their drug use that was immoral, not their hacking?)
 
Is there any other potential reason to condemn them that I may have
overlooked?  If not, then I summarize:
 
If you think that breaking into computers is always per se evil, then you
obviously think that it was evil when the Hannover hackers did it.  If you
think that spying on the United States is always per se evil, then I can
see how you think that it was evil when the Hannover hackers did it.  If
you believe that cooperating with Communists is always per se evil, then
you probably also think that it was evil when Pengo did it.  (Do you also
think it's evil when George Bush does it, with the Chinese?)
 
But I don't agree with either of the first two premises, and I'm
ambivalent about the third premise in this case.  I don't think that any
of the other grounds for condemning them that I've heard make sense.
 
(Of course, this may have something to do with the fact that Hagbard and I
are/were co-religionists, fellow Discordians.)
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 J. Brad Hicks                 | All things are perfect to every last flaw
 mhs!mc!Brad_Hicks@attmail.com | And bound in accordance with Eris's Law.
 
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