4 ms·

"The law doesn't say that they should get their money back explicitly, therefore the state is free to rob citizens blind while they have the chance with absolut

"The law doesn't say that they should get their money back explicitly, therefore the state is free to rob citizens blind while they have the chance with absolutely no repercussions". God I hate this judicial philosophy. If legislation was perfect we wouldn't need judges. Every gap in the legal code that some lawyers can concoct is not valid grounds for exploitation.

bkeroack 9y ago
> Every gap in the legal code that some lawyers can concoct is not valid grounds for exploitation. Yes it is, by definition. Advocate for better legislation, rather than expect lawyers to pinky-swear not to use whatever loopholes they find. An analogy might be: "Every bug or unescaped input in my application is not valid grounds for attackers to pwn my server! How dare they!"
- specialist 9y ago
  What games (rulesets) cannot be broken? Where the spirit of the game cannot be violated by a strict intepretation of the rules. Tic tac toe? Rock, paper, scissors? Are you suggesting the law, any law, can ever be made so simple? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
- MereInterest 9y ago
  I'd put it a different way. It is the job of a program to be free from faults, as much as possible. It is the job of a firewall to protect programs from being exploited, as much as possible, when there are faults. It is the job of legislators to write laws that are as free from faults as possible. It is the job of judges to protect the people from unavoidable faults in legislation.
- selfsimilar 9y ago
  Lawyers and judges are not just hardware interpreting and 'running' the 'code' of law. Law needs to be flexible to handle all manner of unsanitized inputs, and judges need to have leeway to (attempt to) serve justice and the spirit of the law. Laws that are sufficiently written to explicitly close every loop-hole or guard against all malicious 'input', would be monstrosities that no one human could ever truly know. The US tax code strikes me as something that has gone in that direction.
  - scryder 9y ago
    >Law ... monstrocities We already have that, though, and "sufficienty written" is a very dangerous standard. The easiest way to guard against "all" malicious input is write a vague law without clauses that demand mens reas, which means that regardless of whether or not you knowingly broke the law, by violating its provisions, you automatically did. The leeway to "serve justice" also tends to be the leeway to condemn justice or to interpret law in ways it was never designed to account for. The lawcomic, written by a lawyer, has a good section about the kind of overcriminalization you're discussing: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1031 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1031
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > The easiest way to guard against "all" malicious input is write a vague law without clauses that demand mens reas, which means that regardless of whether or not you knowingly broke the law, by violating its provisions, you automatically did. Most criminal laws have a mens rea component (strict liability is rare), but almost none of them have a requirement of knowing that the act was illegal. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is not limited to strict liability offenses.
      - scryder 9y ago
        "The easiest way to avoid loopholes" and "frequency of use in real life" are not equivalent. I'd certainly argue there are plenty of vague, overbroad laws, regardless of the frequency of strict liability's usage. I'd further argue infrequency actually increases the likelihood that otherwise innocent individuals are swept up in such cases: they have less reason to suspect that they've done anything wrong.
  - emmelaich 9y ago
    > ... not just hardware interpreting and 'running' the 'code' of law. We're heading that way in terms of contracts and blockchain. And insofar as "the law" is a contract between the citizens and government, you'll find more and more government regulation being implemented in blockchain in the future.
- noahl 9y ago
  The legal system is different than code in a very important way: the law is written to be applied by intelligent people working (mostly) in good faith. This is why judges have discretion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_discretion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_discretion), and also why tort law exists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort). The attitude in your comment, that the law should be interpreted with perfect strictness and machine-like lack of concern for obvious blunders, is in my opinion really hurting the United States today.
  - jack9 9y ago
    > The legal system is different than code in a very important way: the law is written to be applied by intelligent people working (mostly) in good faith. I disagree. Code is also designed that way. The humble admission and responsible actions to secure against abuse are the same. The difference is in the specific interpretation timings. Code is a priori deterministic and law is a posteriori deterministic, with exceptions on both sides (code environment or human interpretation changes).
  - pierrebai 9y ago
    Í'd like to mention the good book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Speluncean_Explorers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Speluncean_Exp... It delves into multiple possible stances regarding the nature of laws. I think Justice Thomas falls squarely into one of the explored stance. PS: also, an extended version: https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cse.htm https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cse.htm (that's the one I have)
- yellowapple 9y ago
  I mean, the existences of such bugs aren't valid grounds to exploit said bugs. Attackers do so anyway, whether because of some different ground that's actually valid (like being authorized to conduct a penetration test) or because they don't care about whether they have any such ground.

bkeroack 9y ago

> Every gap in the legal code that some lawyers can concoct is not valid grounds for exploitation. Yes it is, by definition. Advocate for better legislation, rather than expect lawyers to pinky-swear not to use whatever loopholes they find. An analogy might be: "Every bug or unescaped input in my application is not valid grounds for attackers to pwn my server! How dare they!"

specialist 9y ago
What games (rulesets) cannot be broken? Where the spirit of the game cannot be violated by a strict intepretation of the rules. Tic tac toe? Rock, paper, scissors? Are you suggesting the law, any law, can ever be made so simple? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic
MereInterest 9y ago
I'd put it a different way. It is the job of a program to be free from faults, as much as possible. It is the job of a firewall to protect programs from being exploited, as much as possible, when there are faults. It is the job of legislators to write laws that are as free from faults as possible. It is the job of judges to protect the people from unavoidable faults in legislation.
selfsimilar 9y ago
Lawyers and judges are not just hardware interpreting and 'running' the 'code' of law. Law needs to be flexible to handle all manner of unsanitized inputs, and judges need to have leeway to (attempt to) serve justice and the spirit of the law. Laws that are sufficiently written to explicitly close every loop-hole or guard against all malicious 'input', would be monstrosities that no one human could ever truly know. The US tax code strikes me as something that has gone in that direction.
- scryder 9y ago
  >Law ... monstrocities We already have that, though, and "sufficienty written" is a very dangerous standard. The easiest way to guard against "all" malicious input is write a vague law without clauses that demand mens reas, which means that regardless of whether or not you knowingly broke the law, by violating its provisions, you automatically did. The leeway to "serve justice" also tends to be the leeway to condemn justice or to interpret law in ways it was never designed to account for. The lawcomic, written by a lawyer, has a good section about the kind of overcriminalization you're discussing: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1031 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1031
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > The easiest way to guard against "all" malicious input is write a vague law without clauses that demand mens reas, which means that regardless of whether or not you knowingly broke the law, by violating its provisions, you automatically did. Most criminal laws have a mens rea component (strict liability is rare), but almost none of them have a requirement of knowing that the act was illegal. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is not limited to strict liability offenses.
    - scryder 9y ago
      "The easiest way to avoid loopholes" and "frequency of use in real life" are not equivalent. I'd certainly argue there are plenty of vague, overbroad laws, regardless of the frequency of strict liability's usage. I'd further argue infrequency actually increases the likelihood that otherwise innocent individuals are swept up in such cases: they have less reason to suspect that they've done anything wrong.
- emmelaich 9y ago
  > ... not just hardware interpreting and 'running' the 'code' of law. We're heading that way in terms of contracts and blockchain. And insofar as "the law" is a contract between the citizens and government, you'll find more and more government regulation being implemented in blockchain in the future.
noahl 9y ago
The legal system is different than code in a very important way: the law is written to be applied by intelligent people working (mostly) in good faith. This is why judges have discretion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_discretion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_discretion), and also why tort law exists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort). The attitude in your comment, that the law should be interpreted with perfect strictness and machine-like lack of concern for obvious blunders, is in my opinion really hurting the United States today.
- jack9 9y ago
  > The legal system is different than code in a very important way: the law is written to be applied by intelligent people working (mostly) in good faith. I disagree. Code is also designed that way. The humble admission and responsible actions to secure against abuse are the same. The difference is in the specific interpretation timings. Code is a priori deterministic and law is a posteriori deterministic, with exceptions on both sides (code environment or human interpretation changes).
- pierrebai 9y ago
  Í'd like to mention the good book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Speluncean_Explorers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Speluncean_Exp... It delves into multiple possible stances regarding the nature of laws. I think Justice Thomas falls squarely into one of the explored stance. PS: also, an extended version: https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cse.htm https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cse.htm (that's the one I have)
yellowapple 9y ago
I mean, the existences of such bugs aren't valid grounds to exploit said bugs. Attackers do so anyway, whether because of some different ground that's actually valid (like being authorized to conduct a penetration test) or because they don't care about whether they have any such ground.