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This is a fringe opinion, but I personally wish the U.S. would make all forms of hacking and digital surveillance totally legal. Yes, legal, with no "I". I thi

by apeace 10y ago

This is a fringe opinion, but I personally wish the U.S. would make all forms of hacking and digital surveillance totally legal. Yes, legal, with no "I". I think this would drastically change the technology landscape, putting more impetus on vendors to provide (and prove) protections such as encryption, and an impetus on users to select the vendors who are the best at doing so. Hacking laws are a crutch that attempt to patch insecure systems with law enforcement. And they risk being interpreted incorrectly--see interpretation of CFAA in the Aaron Swartz case, where downloading files could have meant 35 years in prison. I say let the CPUs interpret the bits, not the politicians. They cannot keep up with changes in technology, will make many wrong decisions, and are susceptible to corruption. In a world where hacking is legal, encrypting everything would be the right thing to do. It would be the only way to stop the government from spying on us, and the only way for them to stop us from spying on them.

Taek 10y ago
That would backfire very rapidly. We have trillions of dollars of infrastructure that would last 3 days against a single competent hacker. There was just an article recently on vulnerable hardcoded-password medical devices. Electrical grids and construction equipment aren't much better. People's webcams that they already own, phones that they already own, highly insecure software is pervasive in everyone's every day life. It's inescapable. The pressure you are talking about would be too great. Things would collapse if it became legal to actively pursue hacking them.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  So instead you want to wait until it gets worse? What's the end-game there? With bailing wire and plucky determination the FBI and NSA defend us, forever on guard against the one mistake that may bring it all crumbling down? This "too big too risk" is precisely why we need this, and needed it twenty years ago. And we need it now, so that we aren't in a worse spot next year, etc. To lessen the pain maybe for the first few years only "mostly harmless" hacks with full disclosure could be made fully legal. We could ramp up slowly.

by apeace 10y ago

Taek 10y ago

That would backfire very rapidly. We have trillions of dollars of infrastructure that would last 3 days against a single competent hacker. There was just an article recently on vulnerable hardcoded-password medical devices. Electrical grids and construction equipment aren't much better. People's webcams that they already own, phones that they already own, highly insecure software is pervasive in everyone's every day life. It's inescapable. The pressure you are talking about would be too great. Things would collapse if it became legal to actively pursue hacking them.

EdHominem 10y ago
So instead you want to wait until it gets worse? What's the end-game there? With bailing wire and plucky determination the FBI and NSA defend us, forever on guard against the one mistake that may bring it all crumbling down? This "too big too risk" is precisely why we need this, and needed it twenty years ago. And we need it now, so that we aren't in a worse spot next year, etc. To lessen the pain maybe for the first few years only "mostly harmless" hacks with full disclosure could be made fully legal. We could ramp up slowly.