From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: EFFector Online 3.06: Bruce Sterling
Date: 12 Oct 92 23:35:31 GMT
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

In article <5392@balrog.ctron.com>, mattb@ctron (Matt Brown) writes:
>That is much too broad a statement; Sterling implied evil motives of the KGB,
>not every agency in the XSoviet government.

[ rest deleted ]

You make good points with your article.  Reading your comment, I
notice that I neglected the mention of KGB at the beginning of the
quoted article.  I would like to point out, however, that my comment
was to this quote from Bruce Sterling's writing:

>I don't recall cautioning Gibson that his novel might lead to anarchist
>hackers selling their expertise to the ferocious and repulsive apparat
>that gave the world the Lubyanka and the Gulag Archipelago. I don't

which I (perhaps mistakenly) read as meaning the "evildoing" was to
sell expertise to the Soviet system.

What I tried to say was that it's pretty much the same game no matter
which side you play - and your perception of who is wearing the "white
hats" often has little to do with the results of your actions.

>I guess my best answer to Jyrki is that there are cases where agencies and
>individuals overstep their rightful charter (if they have one), and that
>these instances must be detested as publically as possible, when they are
>discovered. This does not mean that anyone who works for the US 1government is
>doing evil, any more than Pengo's case implies that all Germans are evil,
>or that the Internet is a network for criminals.

This part seems to miss the issue, though.  Overstepping charters was
not the issue.  I would guess KGB was functioning well within it's
charter, as is NSA or CIA when it is doing similar things to gather
information.  Is a NSA or CIA worker doing immoral or "evil" things
when gathering information for pay, with no idea what the information
gained is used for?  Is there a difference between what Pengo did and
the NSA or CIA worker does?  What was "evil" or "immoral" in what
Pengo did (assuming here selling information to KGB, getting that
information from U.S. computers, the exact same thing our "friendly"
NSA/CIA worker reading this very newsgroup does?)

What my point was is that it seems to be the exact same game, and the
passage requoted above seems to be saying that it's immoral or "evil"
for anarchists on the frontier to sell expertise to such
organizations.  Should the NSA person reading this quit his job to be
considered ethical by Bruce Sterling or the persons who say Pengo's
actions immoral or evil?  Since the NSA guy can't know what is done
with the information, isn't it the exact same thing?  Certainly it
seems people here acknowledge that it isn't the case that NSA always
is the one wearing a white hat, or that KGB is always wearing a black
hat.  Then _why_ are Pengo's actions claimed to be immoral, while I
see few people saying the NSA guys doing the exact same thing are
acting for pure selfish greed?

//Jyrki
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