Comment by lucideer
6 years ago
Its a matter of principle though. Droogie hasn't done anything wrong, and is receiving fines due to errors made by the DMV.
You're right that when faced with a choice between acting on principle vs acting pragmatically/for one's own benefit/convenience/need, people often don't have the luxury of (or patience for) choosing the former. But it's nice to see when someone does.
> Droogie hasn't done anything wrong
That's arguable, actually. The article states, but doesn't provide evidence, that Droogie "hoped it might confuse automatic license plate readers or the DMV's ticketing system".
If this was done in an attempt to evade enforcement of existing laws, then sorry: that's a crime, folks. You aren't allowed to pen test live systems!
Is the punishment for that crime loads of unrelated parking tickets?
That's a weird legal system going on over there.
Fair, it could be argued. As you said in a deeper comment though, it would take an enterprising prosecutor (though they're hardly scarce) .
Within reason though, he hasn't technically done anything to warrant tickets.
Why would that be a crime? Intent is irrelevant. The crime is that the DMV is running shit code that is wrongly accusing people of crimes.
Intent is absolutely relevant in criminal law. The phrase "with the intent of" or "for the purposes of" appears everywhere in the field. Go browse through the quoted text of the CFAA here and see what you can find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
I'm not interested in getting involved in a philosophical discussion about whether anarchic hacking "should" be a crime. I'm saying that given the text of that article, an enterprising prosecutor could probably get a conviction for one.
Don't fuck with other people's systems. Even (and especially) when they're running shit code.
TBH it's a very silly principle to fight for: "I DEMAND YOU HAVE NO BUGS!" And the DMV could just as well argue "Sorry, the bug is that we never should have accepted your NULL plate application in the first place, so we'll send you a non-vanity plate".
I agree with the outcome of your premise to some degree. But he did do nothing against their stated policies regarding vanity plates. They issued him the palte. I am of the opinion that if they have a flaw in their code, it is on them to fix it, not the 'customer' to change their situation after the fact...
He's not demanding they have no bugs, he's merely refusing to provide a workaround for their bugs at his own expense and inconvenience (sure refusing to may actually involve other greater expense and inconvenience but that's beside the point).
The suggestion in the latter half of your comment is notable in that that's not what they said or offered. They don't even seem to have offered any recompense, which could at least be seen as a reasonable middleground (though still a compromise for Droogie who is denied his vanity plate post facto)