Re: "Hackers"-- brief review and anecdote...

[Brian Davis <bdavis@thepoint.net>]

On Tue, 19 Sep 1995, Rich Salz wrote:

> >> If it wasn't for ITAR the Net would already have secure encryption and
> >> authentication, and most such hacker attacks would be impossible (or at 
> >> least impractical).
> 
> >The non-responsive answer is stricken from the record.  :-)
> >You mean "secure" as Netscape was secure from sameer et al.?
> 
> I don't think it's non-response, I just think you don't understand
> yhour expert witness.

Difficult to judge a non-responsive answer to a question, when you delete 
the question asked ...

The question was, essentially, what do you think should happen to a 
teenage hacker ...

The "answer" was ... if you did x hacking wouldn't happen.

I guess that means that the domestic version of Netscape can't be broken 
as sameer did.  Oh wait a minute.  Yes it can.  Sloppy work is sloppy 
work.  And it had nothing to do with imposed limits on key length.

Q.  What should you do to a person who robs an liquor store and shoots 
the storekeeper?
A.  If you had gun control, he couldn't have shot him!

Replies in this vein remind me of nothing more than the people who, in 
response to reports of a tragedy in which children die of starvation, 
sickness, or whatever, write letters to the editor which say "thousands 
of children die every year because abortion is legal ..."


And given that the "unexportable" version of Netscape has the same gaping 
hole as the exportable version, your "it's all ITAR's fault" answer is, 
indeed, not responsive.

I even included a smiley for the humor-impaired, but that apparently was 
insufficient.

EBD