I agree with the concept of this article. The author is speaking from a legal perspective of protection for those who are technically savvy, non-malicious, but simply have too much time on their hands. There most certainly is a very important legal distinction between the intent to cause damage and the will to simply help out.

To the person who commented regarding breaking into your home and leaving a note...that example has nothing to do with the world of computer security. There are obvious ontological and legal distinctions between a person's home and a computer system and thus that argument, from a legal and normative perspective, is basically irrelevant.

For years I have been of the opinion that non-malicious "hacking" has primarily served to strengthen overall network security. Better that a person simply point out your faults than actually exploit them.

Law enforcement has a very narrow view of modern technological principals and practices. They are still trying to apply traditional realist crime prevention/punishment methodologies to an entity that is arguably more nominalist in nature. This approach will simply not work...and judging by trends in the field, does not work.

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