The electronic media have given us new paradigms for communicating, publishing, and conducting business. My colleagues's comments demonstrate significant disagreement on the interpretation of these paradigms, and they make clear that these issues are not going to be solved merely by better computer security or law enforcement.
Dialogue is essential, and the points of disagreement show where that dialogue is most needed.
With respect to the first area, I agree with Parker that law enforcers are not cracking down on illegal hacking as a result of fear generated by well-publicized incidents, as I incorrectly suggested in the opening paragraph of my article. Rather, law enforcers are responding to crimes reported by companies whose losses were sufficiently great to justify prosecution. Instead, I see an honest effort to be more responsive to computer crimes that have taken place. I also agree with Parker that the outcry over computer seizures and indictments has been prompted by only a few incidents, mainly the Neidorf and Steven Jackson cases. Neither of these cases was part of Sundevil.