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Excellent. This means the problem is solved and we don't have to secure any of our systems, because he was a one-in-a-billion case that nobody could replicate. (Surely nobody is currently doing the same things with less fanfare.)



So we shouldn't arrest people when they commit a crime because others are committing the same crime? Or because they're doing it in a high-profile manner?

I'm not sure what your point is here.


> It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. ~Voltaire

Our governments have no comprehension or understanding of the prospects or implications that the internet has on modern civilization. When an individual can take down an organizations method of operation (mastercard/visa/paypal), it isn't the individuals fault (regardless of their actions) it is the organizations fault.

You don't blame someone for stealing from a bank when they pile gold bullion in the entrance without a guard in sight. You blame the bank because that's fucking stupid.

Being able to dDOS mastercard isn't the individuals fault, it's mastercards. I've never heard of someone dDOSing Google, why? Because Google only makes money when people access it and their system can support insane amounts of instantaneous traffic. It's a simple fact that sooner or later mastercard/visa would have been taken down by a normal traffic spike.

Is it the users fault when mastercard gets dDOS'd by a few million people placing midnight orders on Black Friday?

Seriously, look at the world rationally. If I can spend $5 on a padlock, it's my fault when someone steals my $500 BBQ from my back yard. Someone committed a crime, yes, but I'm going to be buying a padlock like I should have in the first place.

Why didn't mastercard/visa/paypal/sony/sony/sony/(sony x 27 fucking times) front the goddamn cash so they wouldn't lose hundreds of thousands.


> When an individual can take down an organizations method of operation (mastercard/visa/paypal), it isn't the individuals fault (regardless of their actions) it is the organizations fault.

Who cares whose fault it is? It's illegal, they get arrested, it's simple really.

> You don't blame someone for stealing from a bank when they pile gold bullion in the entrance without a guard in sight. You blame the bank because that's fucking stupid.

Sure, you can do that. That, and arrest the person too because, you know, they broke the law.


>Sure, you can do that. That, and arrest the person too because, you know, they broke the law.

I think it's more relevant that what they did was willfully malicious. I probably regularly violate laws that I'm not even aware of, but the fact that I'm not intentionally doing harm to anyone establishes some kind of innocence.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat

"The rationale of the doctrine is that if ignorance were an excuse, a person charged with criminal offenses or a subject of a civil lawsuit would merely claim that he or she is unaware of the law in question to avoid liability, even though the person really does know what the law in question is. Thus, the law imputes knowledge of all laws to all persons within the jurisdiction no matter how transiently."


IANAL, but this sounds like the idea behind Mens rea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea


I think his point is that by doing this we are simply treating the symptom (breach in security), and not the cause (unsound security measures). It appears to me as "security theater" in every sense that I understand the phrase.


Although, of course, the police aren't the ones who would be patching up the security vulnerabilities anyway. So arresting unethical hackers and securing systems aren't mutually exclusive. What a country!




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