There is no illegality if a producer for NBC invited Lamo to enter their system. Lamo reasonably could have believed that the NBC producer had legal authority to allow him to enter the corporate computers without written approval from the CEO. Whether or not the producer actually did is an issue between the producer and NBC, not for the criminal courts.

However, the camera crew was apparently there to view Lamo entering the computers of a telecommunications company and it seems unlikely that this telecom company would allow NBC to do a segment on its computers being penetrated. Stocks have been known to drop on such news. The comments of Jennifer Granick were on point on this issue. If NBC did not encourage Lamo to break into a computer, which, given the articles printed here, Lamo apparently did have the predisposition to do, NBC would not be violating any criminal law.

However, this is strictly a legal point and not one likely to carry much weight with a civil jury if the telecom company sued NBC claiming NBC was complicit. By way of an admittedly poor comparison, do you think the families of the passengers of the jets downed on 9/11 would not sue NBC if NBC had taped a 'security' expose with the hijackers entering the planes with box cutters?

The real problem here is twofold. First, NBC couldn't care less about Lamo and would like to add fuel to the fire of Lamo's demise, and to all those others whom the segment might encourage to do the same as Lamo. This isn't 'reporting' and NBC is acting irresponsibly. I have personally asked the writer of this article to question his own moral culpability in reporting on this guy instead of giving him a warning that, given the writer's own background and experience in these matters, Lamo might actually heed.

Second, the feds can and will come down on this kid like a ton of bricks sooner or later - probably sooner. I personally would hate to see anything at all happen to Adrain Lamo. He is just a spoke on a wheel of a much larger problem, which, in my opinion, has little to do with hackers.

The only issue that makes Lamo worth reporting on at all is whether a hacker that has arguably altruistic motives, may penetrate a corporate system without the permission of that coroporation. Legally, Lamo may not. And if the feds turn a blind eye, they implicitly put their stamp of approval on this activity. Then, hackers with less benign motives would be able to break into systems with impunity, simply by informing the companies, perhaps even anonymously, after the break-in. In other words, a hacker's motives are an issue for a court to decide, not the FBI, the company broken into, nor even the hacker himself. Sadly, because there is no protocol to allow such computer entries, this case and every such case must be enforced for the computer crime laws have any effect at all.

And I hate to be the one to say it.

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