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This is hacker logic I would expect it to be hacker logic, but I still don't agree. Company X hired a contractor to produce keys. Contractor Y produced more ke

by ynniv 15y ago

This is hacker logic I would expect it to be hacker logic, but I still don't agree. Company X hired a contractor to produce keys. Contractor Y produced more keys than he was authorized to produce, and sold them on the side. Are those additional keys "fraudulent"? Was he authorized to produce and sell any number of them as long as he paid for them? Clearly he had no intention of paying for these, but that doesn't make the keys he sold on the side any less valid than the keys he was authorized to produce. He is certainly liable for his contractual obligations (the money owed per key), which the article states the MBTA is trying to recoup. The actual legal system will look at this like printing fraudulent checks on authentic check paper. In this case, by the payroll company that was in charge of printing checks. Does that make them fraudulent? Is cashing them a crime? I would expect the payroll company to be liable for the damages, but I would not expect the company to be prosecuted for fraud. You have picked a particularly poor example because an unauthorized check deprives the account holder of the value of a check. An unauthorized MBTA pass deprives the MBTA of the possible revenue that a customer purchasing a discounted pass might have contributed, and additionally increases the operating costs (generally fixed) of the MBTA by little to none. specifically, hacker-who-is-committed-to-piracy-being-noncriminal logic. To my knowledge, most piracy cases are civil cases. I don't recall any being prosecuted by the Attorneys General. (EDIT: I am wrong. High value for-profit cases are prosecuted as criminal offenses by the FBI under Title 17 §506.) The illegality of this is about as controversial a proposition as "Javascript is a programming language." I don't know what kind of argumentation that is supposed to be, but it doesn't suit someone of your stature. This is a complex situation that few or none of us are properly equipped to resolve, but I still expect reasonable discussions, or else what's the point of being here?

patio11 15y ago
"This is a complex situation that few or none of us are properly equipped to resolve." This is, in fact, not a complex situation. Law is not a magic, unknownable realm populated by wizards who have the sole ability to understand what it means. Hard questions in law are hard questions, like hard questions in engineering are hard questions, but this is not a hard question. It's only a hard question if you are ignorant of the law or are intellectually committed to law not working the way law actually works. Printing a check which exceeds one's granted authority is, with absolute certainty, a crime. You seem to be hung up on the notion that the payroll company can print one check and, therefore, if it prints two checks, check #2 is kinda grey-area authorized. The law does not see things that way: if you're knowingly printing extra checks to with the extent of stealing from their account, it is screamingly illegal. I mean, want to look at an actual law? Here you go, MA General Law Chapter 267 (Forgery and Crimes Against the Currency) Section 1 (False or forged records, certificates, returns, attestations and other writings) "Section 2. Whoever, with intent to injure or defraud, falsely makes, alters, forges or counterfeits a railroad ticket, railroad mileage book or railroad pass, or a ticket, badge, pass or any written or printed license purporting to entitle the holder or owner thereof to admission to any exhibition, entertainment, performance, match or contest of any kind, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than three years or in jail for not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars." This is really not ambiguous. Was it unpredictable that this was the law in MA? No. If one hypothetically believes that this case does not qualify as "falsely makes" or that the bad actor here didn't have "intent to ... defraud", one is wrong. One is not just a little wrong, or arguably wrong, or sort of grey area wrong.
- ynniv 15y ago
  I think that we have a fundamental misunderstanding here. My stance is that the wrongdoing is not "fraud" because the passes which were sold were in fact valid passes for which the MBTA was not compensated. You seem to be interpreting my statements as claiming there was no wrongdoing, which isn't my claim. Law is not a magic, unknownable realm populated by wizards who have the sole ability to understand what it means. Law is not magic. But I am not a lawyer, and I don't think that many lawyers, let alone those who specialize in criminal prosecution or even intellectual property read Hacker News. Hence my claim that this is a complex issue for "us" to engage in, for which "we" are not fully qualified. My interest in this stems from the notion that we should be informed of the society we live in, and that Hacker News comment threads are places of philosophical discussion. Also, the Hacker News article uses the term "forged" instead of the article's "fake", and I think that both of these are incorrect. The passes produced were clearly valid, but unauthorized. If one hypothetically believes that this case does not qualify as "falsely makes" or that the bad actor here didn't have "intent to ... defraud", one is wrong. One is not just a little wrong, or arguably wrong, or sort of grey area wrong. I apparently lack your swagger. Given that the MBTA could not differentiate these passes from the ordinary pass, I claim that these passes are not "falsely made". In every way they behave as stolen passes, but not fake ones. Why does this matter? I suppose that I care because the headline "Forged Subway Passes" is the only reason this article belongs on Hacker News. But given that these are more "stolen" than "forged", there is nothing technically interesting about this event and it doesn't really belong here. But our discussion has been interesting, because you have presented compelling arguments that this is actually fraud. I still believe that it is not, but the process of arguing has made me develop my intuition of something that I wouldn't normally have cared about. I certainly wouldn't have realized that I thought the event was theft and not fraud.

by ynniv 15y ago

patio11 15y ago

"This is a complex situation that few or none of us are properly equipped to resolve." This is, in fact, not a complex situation. Law is not a magic, unknownable realm populated by wizards who have the sole ability to understand what it means. Hard questions in law are hard questions, like hard questions in engineering are hard questions, but this is not a hard question. It's only a hard question if you are ignorant of the law or are intellectually committed to law not working the way law actually works. Printing a check which exceeds one's granted authority is, with absolute certainty, a crime. You seem to be hung up on the notion that the payroll company can print one check and, therefore, if it prints two checks, check #2 is kinda grey-area authorized. The law does not see things that way: if you're knowingly printing extra checks to with the extent of stealing from their account, it is screamingly illegal. I mean, want to look at an actual law? Here you go, MA General Law Chapter 267 (Forgery and Crimes Against the Currency) Section 1 (False or forged records, certificates, returns, attestations and other writings) "Section 2. Whoever, with intent to injure or defraud, falsely makes, alters, forges or counterfeits a railroad ticket, railroad mileage book or railroad pass, or a ticket, badge, pass or any written or printed license purporting to entitle the holder or owner thereof to admission to any exhibition, entertainment, performance, match or contest of any kind, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than three years or in jail for not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars." This is really not ambiguous. Was it unpredictable that this was the law in MA? No. If one hypothetically believes that this case does not qualify as "falsely makes" or that the bad actor here didn't have "intent to ... defraud", one is wrong. One is not just a little wrong, or arguably wrong, or sort of grey area wrong.

ynniv 15y ago
I think that we have a fundamental misunderstanding here. My stance is that the wrongdoing is not "fraud" because the passes which were sold were in fact valid passes for which the MBTA was not compensated. You seem to be interpreting my statements as claiming there was no wrongdoing, which isn't my claim. Law is not a magic, unknownable realm populated by wizards who have the sole ability to understand what it means. Law is not magic. But I am not a lawyer, and I don't think that many lawyers, let alone those who specialize in criminal prosecution or even intellectual property read Hacker News. Hence my claim that this is a complex issue for "us" to engage in, for which "we" are not fully qualified. My interest in this stems from the notion that we should be informed of the society we live in, and that Hacker News comment threads are places of philosophical discussion. Also, the Hacker News article uses the term "forged" instead of the article's "fake", and I think that both of these are incorrect. The passes produced were clearly valid, but unauthorized. If one hypothetically believes that this case does not qualify as "falsely makes" or that the bad actor here didn't have "intent to ... defraud", one is wrong. One is not just a little wrong, or arguably wrong, or sort of grey area wrong. I apparently lack your swagger. Given that the MBTA could not differentiate these passes from the ordinary pass, I claim that these passes are not "falsely made". In every way they behave as stolen passes, but not fake ones. Why does this matter? I suppose that I care because the headline "Forged Subway Passes" is the only reason this article belongs on Hacker News. But given that these are more "stolen" than "forged", there is nothing technically interesting about this event and it doesn't really belong here. But our discussion has been interesting, because you have presented compelling arguments that this is actually fraud. I still believe that it is not, but the process of arguing has made me develop my intuition of something that I wouldn't normally have cared about. I certainly wouldn't have realized that I thought the event was theft and not fraud.