I find this topic very troubling. I work in the security field and I will shortly be developing applications in this field as well. I do not, in any way, proclaim to be an expert is this field, however, and indeed am always learning new and exciting things in this field. More on that in a moment...

I wish I could put into words how angry this topic makes me. Lets see if I can sum up.

First, a little off the main topic but it comes back... :)

1. The government needs to stick its nose elsewhere when it comes to certain aspects of the DMCA. The DMCA is a corporate dream. Let the multi-billion dollar corporations spend their own money to thwart off unethical theft of their product(s). At the very least, re-write the DMCA to make the actual theft illegal instead of all that other language about the creation and distribution of software that facilitates such unethical activity. Since when was it illegal to make a knife?? Since when was it illegal to make a 9mm handgun? IT'S NOT! Creating software to break laws should not be illegal either! If you make these things illegal it's only the law-abiding citizen who gets hurt.

2. Why is hacking considered terrorism? That is the most assinine thing I have ever heard. People who care nothing for their own lives while taking others' lives is considered terrorism to the majority of people in the world.

I own a network and the machines on my network. As a responsible admin I make backups of the data on my network. If somebody breaks into one of my machines and then emails me telling me how he or she did it, and no harm was done to my network, I would consider that helpful...not harmful. If somebody broke into one of my machines, inserted a trojan, mapped my network, broke into all my other mahcines, looked at data, made changes to things on my machines, etc, I admit that I would *not* be happy and indeed I would be quite angry but by all means I would NOT consider these acts of terrorism.

If somebody used my network as a DDoS host I would be very upset indeed. I still would not consider myself the victim of terrorism. What's more is that I hear some of these people facing fines of up to 250K USD and some time in federal prison!!! COME ON!! I have heard of rapists and violent crime doers who get 6 months and a few thousand dollars! Something is seriously wrong with this country when money becomes more important than people!

3. Why is it that CEO's of major corporations, as of late, can out and out *steal* billions of dollars from share holders, pension holders, employees, and probably from other unknown victims NOT TO MENTION the fact they *still* get fat severence checks and still get away with it???? Why aren't these people considered terrorists? They don't fit the definition, do they? Neither do hackers.

Here is a contrast comparison. The average black-hat hacker has probably caused several thousands of dollars of damage. Yet these CEO white-collar criminals steal billions upon billions of dollars from innocent unwitting and unknowing victims. These CEO's are still living it up in their penthouses driving their expensive cars, going on lavish vacations while the government slaps them on the hand and tells them "don't". The majority of these criminals have not even been required to give the money back or made any other kind of restitution. In fact, these criminals feel like they have done nothing wrong. The way the government has treated these people I am not surprised.

On the other hand, you have some people who have not done anything wrong, ethically speaking, by creating programs that help them reprove their own networks or hosts on their own networks yet these people are being investigated for having committed crimes that are only defined by laws that are ridiculous and unfair. There has always been a requirement in America that the intention(s) of a suspect must be proven without a reasonable doubt to develop culpability for a crime by a reasonable person in order for that commission or ommission to be indicted upon. It is becoming obvious to me that the government is getting away from this mandate and I personally find this chilling and disturbing.

My hope is that the officials of the government will clean their act up and start doing their jobs for the betterment of America and not the betterment of America's corporations.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/813/16565#16565