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There are interesting paradoxes though when you mix "legalistic" and "geeky" worldviews. :P E.g. let's say somebody publishes the statement "one of the prime fa

There are interesting paradoxes though when you mix "legalistic" and "geeky" worldviews. :P E.g. let's say somebody publishes the statement "one of the prime factors in Bill's SSN is 7"... and then someone else, independently... ;P You get the point! :)

izacus 10y ago
Then you look at them, determine their intent (to publish Bill's SSN) and punish them or not accordingly. That's the point of the legal system and judges - as opposed to computer code they actually tend to try and determine intent as an important part of a ruling.
- drdaeman 10y ago
  The problem is, the intent of such action is, most probably, to just fuck with the law (requiring it to solve the task it can't work on, because its from the different realm[1]), not to publish Bill's SSN. Legal system may try to handle the issue - in this particular case, it's possible to just ignore the primary intent and decide whenever an intent to publish did exist instead - but sometimes it just fails. I think that's, for example, how PGP source code was exported, working around munitions export laws. [1] It must be dual. In a same manner formal logic can not be always applied to the realm of legal affairs, laws may malfunction when asked to handle problems from the domains they don't really map to.
- bjornsing 10y ago
  > Then you look at them, determine their intent (to publish Bill's SSN) and punish them or not accordingly. That sounds like a very pragmatic view of the legal system. I'm more idealistic so I'd rather say that you have to "prove" (rather than "determine") their intent before you can punish them. ;P Look, I'm not saying you're wrong, but there absolutely are times when the "geeks" win. For example consider export control for cryptographic algorithms which was thoroughly ridiculed by "geeks" [1] and later scrapped IIRC. 1. http://www.cypherspace.org/rsa/ http://www.cypherspace.org/rsa/

izacus 10y ago

Then you look at them, determine their intent (to publish Bill's SSN) and punish them or not accordingly. That's the point of the legal system and judges - as opposed to computer code they actually tend to try and determine intent as an important part of a ruling.

drdaeman 10y ago
The problem is, the intent of such action is, most probably, to just fuck with the law (requiring it to solve the task it can't work on, because its from the different realm[1]), not to publish Bill's SSN. Legal system may try to handle the issue - in this particular case, it's possible to just ignore the primary intent and decide whenever an intent to publish did exist instead - but sometimes it just fails. I think that's, for example, how PGP source code was exported, working around munitions export laws. [1] It must be dual. In a same manner formal logic can not be always applied to the realm of legal affairs, laws may malfunction when asked to handle problems from the domains they don't really map to.
bjornsing 10y ago
> Then you look at them, determine their intent (to publish Bill's SSN) and punish them or not accordingly. That sounds like a very pragmatic view of the legal system. I'm more idealistic so I'd rather say that you have to "prove" (rather than "determine") their intent before you can punish them. ;P Look, I'm not saying you're wrong, but there absolutely are times when the "geeks" win. For example consider export control for cryptographic algorithms which was thoroughly ridiculed by "geeks" [1] and later scrapped IIRC. 1. http://www.cypherspace.org/rsa/ http://www.cypherspace.org/rsa/