> Who decides that hacking the Mafia is Ok and someone else it is not? The public may or may not have sympathy with it, but it's a crime. The hacker who did it

> Who decides that hacking the Mafia is Ok and someone else it is not? The public may or may not have sympathy with it, but it's a crime. The hacker who did it would have committed a crime and would be sought out and prosecuted appropriately. Some considerations: * The hacker's intent--purely altruistic or otherwise--is irrelevant (or at least must be left to a judge/jury to consider) * The hacker acted as vigilante. The argument that a hacker turning up dirt on "bad" people is acceptable would be arbitrary, and the rule of law would thereby be subverted. You can't have one set of laws for some folk and not for others under the rule of law. As a corollary, I just listened to a guy at a security conference talk about how he had hacked black market credit card resellers and deleted their databases. Arguably a good thing, right? Ignore him, eh? Give him a medal, perhaps? Well... first he'd downloaded their inventory for his own black market site. Whoops. FWIW, he did his time and now works for Wired as a security correspondent.