Comment by rayiner
12 years ago
There is nothing "cooperative" about accessing someone's network against their wishes. Indeed, it's anti-cooperative as well as disrespectful.
The issue, fundamentally, isn't whether digital boundaries are drawn along the same lines as physical ones. They transcend physical boundaries. The issue is whether we give the same deference to digital boundaries as to physical ones. I.e. whether we treat kids hacking into AT&T's network just for shits and giggles the same as their breaking into AT&T's corporate offices with no particular malintent in mind.
Well, look at it from the historical point of view: Jobs and Woz made their early money doing exactly that, building and selling blue boxes.
If you want to encourage people to learn, they have to be able to explore. To explore, they have to be able to conduct some minor mischief from time to time, if for no other reason than mischief is often what evolves into innovation.
I don't understand why you are so conservative and, well, stuffy about this.
I.e. whether we treat kids hacking into AT&T's network just for shits and giggles the same as their breaking into AT&T's corporate offices with no particular malintent in mind.
It seems to me that, right now, we treat the digital equivalent far more harshly.