[hackerspaces] bring back the crime - "hacker" is starting to mean "creative entrepeneur"

[Mark Rosenblitt-Janssen]

On 9/22/15, hellekin <hellekin at dyne.org> wrote:
> On 09/22/2015 09:10 PM, Mark Rosenblitt-Janssen wrote:
>>
>> It was Michael who made the statement about missing the association
>> with crime, not hellekin.
>
> Right.
>
>> BREAKING new ground to create new understanding.  Not walking through
>> guidebooks that hold your hand the whole way which is what
>> hackerspaces have been doing.  Once in long while something creative
>> turns up in a hackerspace.  AND?!?
>>
>
> You didn't finish your line of thought.  Anyway, I can't see why walking
> through guidebooks wouldn't be inspiring for doing creative
> things--one's gotta get inspiration from somewhere.  If you don't go
> through basic mathematics, chances are you won't break any new ground in
> mathematics.  But I'll retain this sentence because it's relevant:
> "BREAKING new ground to create new understanding".  I think that Mitch's
> TV-B-Gone did exactly that.

Ah, but Steve Wozniak broke that ground (messing w/other's TV sets)
decades ago:  http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/the-definitive-story-of-steve-wozniak-steve-jobs-and-phone-phreaking/273331/

Admittingly, Mitch's shuts off the TV.  Better hack?  Yesterday, no.
Today, maybe.

> And it also served as inspiration to create
> Consumer-B-Gone.  Without TV-B-Gone, would have Consumer-B-Gone be
> created?  Maybe, maybe not.  But it certainly was an inspiration to
> create a device that blocks the cart wheels in supermarkets, in an
> analogy--or as an extension--of shutting down TV sets around you.  None
> of these projects are illegal,

That's probably not true.  You've interfered with someone's private
liberty or legitimate business.

> although they may be punished as if you
> were a criminal when you're caught smiling too much.  Does the crime
> makes the hack?  Only, IMO, if you're in a dick contest in a high-school
> classroom.

No, you don't get it.  I thought I was being clear.  America was built
on protest -- on things that were considered crimes by the authorities
at the time, but are now considered patriotic acts.  Is that a dick
contest?  No -- you got to stop sucking the dick for the Man, man, so
you can see the difference.

>>> When I said I didn't like the association with crime, it's because the
>>> term "hacker" is not a made up thing like "intellectual property" that
>>> confounds many different things into one meaningless term.
>>
>> But that's what also makes it powerful.
>
> Define "it"?  I can't follow your thought, again.

Use of the word "hacker".  It's ambiguity can also be used on it's behalf.

>> You see, the association with crime makes it mutually EXCLUSIVE to
>> entrepreneurship.
>
> I can't see why.  Have you heard about Volkswagen recently?

Nope.

>> Woah, woah woah, right there pardner.  It's not a crime until the
>> Judge says it's a crime.
>
> So you mean that it's fine that other people define the terms for you.

Other people define the terms?   I'm the friggin' attorney doing the
arguing to the Judge, here.  It's my and your Law, remember?  Didn't
you read "Hack the Law" on the wiki?

> I don't mean to offend you, after all,

No, no.  Not offended.  Disappointed.  That you guys want to be called
hackers and get all the "juice" without doing much of the sweat and
blood and tears.

> I was also mentioning the fact computer fraud can be punished
> more severely than murder.  Entiendes?

Could be, but that's because people don't know how to argue their own
law and get intimidated by the non-legal monopoly of the legal
establishment.

>> Because, you don't know:  is the organization a criminal outfit?
>
> This is exactly what my sentence was saying, but you didn't read it.

I read it, but you equivocated on the word "crime" within the same
paragraph.  I chose your first meaning.

>> These are the
>> things the hacker needs to keep in mind for clever circumvention of
>> unnecessary or unrighteous obstacles.
>
> See, we agree.

Oh, it's easy to agree when you're staying legal and it's all intellectual.

>>  One's liberty is absolute until it infringes upon another's.
>
> Here we don't anymore.  I think that one's liberty is never absolute.

I said absolute UNTIL it fringes upon another's -- otherwise why
should anyone block your exercise of liberty?

> One's liberty is only as strong as other people's liberty: the freer you
> are, the freer I can be; as long as there are slaves, I won't be free.

Well, my friend, if you're going to go that far, you might as well as
admit you're not free.  The Indians still don't have the same freedoms
and liberty that they should.  So you might actually have to break a
law or two if you're interested in walking the walk.

>>  Whose liberty is being infringed upon
>> when a teenager dials up a huge mainframe at CorpX?
>
> It all depends on what the teenager is doing with the knowledge they get
> from this access.

Oh, but no need to go that far, the law says he already committed a
crime.  So no need to address what he does afterwards yet.

Marxos