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> I've copied the information in your mail to myself without harming the original. If you opened mail from my physical mailbox, you'd have committed the federa

> I've copied the information in your mail to myself without harming the original. If you opened mail from my physical mailbox, you'd have committed the federal crime of mail tampering, which faces a fine and/or jail time. If you opened 3.3 million letters from my mail box, you'd probably be the first person to live the remainder of their life in jail for mail tampering... regardless of your age. My mail is stored in an easily accessible box at the end of my driveway. If it has any form of lock, you're committing a much more serious crime. When you're hacking into a passworded system to steal email, your crime should be treated with just severity. Not only should it be regarded as committing a federal crime, but there should be charges for breaking the lock too (I'm against the DMCA's whole copyright circumvention bullshit, because it hurts the little guy. But no protection against email fraud hurts the little guy.) > If you fail to lock your door, you are in effect allowing this possibility. If you communicate over a "clear" channel, without taking steps to encrypt that data, you are again allowing this. That's why I don't view this as a valid moral claim. If I fail to lock my door, it's still immoral to enter my property and steal everything. Just as it's immoral to enter my unlockable mailbox and steal my mail. If you don't find it immoral for someone else to read your mail then honestly you should have no qualms with posting the entire contents of all your email addresses online for us to scrutinize as well. If there's no immorality about stealing a corporations emails, containing hundreds or thousands of peoples personal emails and information then you should have no morality problems about HN trawling your own emails. Regardless of if I lock my door or not, I have a right not to have my property looted. Regardless of if I use a strong or weak password for my email, I have the right to not have my property looted. My problem with this world is people like you, who will be the first to scream fucking murder when some trivial wrong happens to you but you claim everyone else has no moral claim for not doing everything you deem appropriate. Get off your fucking high horse and learn the god damn definition of morals because at least knowing the definition might help you find a set. I'm giving myself a 99% chance of being down voted, but put your money where your mouth is. I want to see your goddamn emails.

angersock 15y ago
If you opened mail from my physical mailbox, you'd have committed the federal crime of mail tampering, which faces a fine and/or jail time. If you opened 3.3 million letters from my mail box, you'd probably be the first person to live the remainder of their life in jail for mail tampering... regardless of your age. Right, yes, it's illegal, but that's more an accident of legislature than anything else. Don't pretend that that gives it moral explanatory power one way or the other. If I fail to lock my door, it's still immoral to enter my property and steal everything. Just as it's immoral to enter my unlockable mailbox and steal my mail. I agree that theft resulting in exclusion of your access to your resources is very much unethical--copying mail does not result in this exclusion of access. If you don't find it immoral for someone else to read your mail then honestly you should have no qualms with posting the entire contents of all your email addresses online for us to scrutinize as well. I don't have to find it immoral; giving away that information freely is an act of charity I do not believe myself morally obligated to perform. Were you to come across it otherwise, I'd be a bit annoyed (as I would have to update various authentication mechanisms), but I wouldn't believe I ought to jail you or fine you or the like. I make a bet, everyday, that the relative security of my systems is adequate for my needs. Some days I'm right, some days I'm wrong, and I bear no ill will for somebody that authenticates as me to that system--clearly, the error was in the system's scope and construction. My problem with this world is people like you, who will be the first to scream fucking murder when some trivial wrong happens to you but you claim everyone else has no moral claim for not doing everything you deem appropriate. Get off your fucking high horse and learn the god damn definition of morals because at least knowing the definition might help you find a set. I'm giving myself a 99% chance of being down voted, but put your money where your mouth is. I want to see your goddamn emails. You know, if I could do so without giving away authentication credentials for other things, I would. That said, the cost-benefit isn't there. As I pointed out above, I don't have any moral obligation to provide you with information--if you gather on your own, hell, that's your business. As long as only copying has occurred, what does it matter?
- electromagnetic 15y ago
  Jesus dude stop fucking trolling. Mail tampering isn't illegal through an accident of legislature, it's illegal because even a hundred years ago they realised its a serious deal. As long as I only copy your social insurance number, credit card numbers, banking information, etc, what does it matter? I'm just copying!
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    Reading between the lines, I gather that angersock's underlying point was just that technological solutions are superior to legislative solutions, with the twist that technical capability equals moral acceptability. Apologies to angersock if I interpreted incorrectly.

angersock 15y ago

If you opened mail from my physical mailbox, you'd have committed the federal crime of mail tampering, which faces a fine and/or jail time. If you opened 3.3 million letters from my mail box, you'd probably be the first person to live the remainder of their life in jail for mail tampering... regardless of your age. Right, yes, it's illegal, but that's more an accident of legislature than anything else. Don't pretend that that gives it moral explanatory power one way or the other. If I fail to lock my door, it's still immoral to enter my property and steal everything. Just as it's immoral to enter my unlockable mailbox and steal my mail. I agree that theft resulting in exclusion of your access to your resources is very much unethical--copying mail does not result in this exclusion of access. If you don't find it immoral for someone else to read your mail then honestly you should have no qualms with posting the entire contents of all your email addresses online for us to scrutinize as well. I don't have to find it immoral; giving away that information freely is an act of charity I do not believe myself morally obligated to perform. Were you to come across it otherwise, I'd be a bit annoyed (as I would have to update various authentication mechanisms), but I wouldn't believe I ought to jail you or fine you or the like. I make a bet, everyday, that the relative security of my systems is adequate for my needs. Some days I'm right, some days I'm wrong, and I bear no ill will for somebody that authenticates as me to that system--clearly, the error was in the system's scope and construction. My problem with this world is people like you, who will be the first to scream fucking murder when some trivial wrong happens to you but you claim everyone else has no moral claim for not doing everything you deem appropriate. Get off your fucking high horse and learn the god damn definition of morals because at least knowing the definition might help you find a set. I'm giving myself a 99% chance of being down voted, but put your money where your mouth is. I want to see your goddamn emails. You know, if I could do so without giving away authentication credentials for other things, I would. That said, the cost-benefit isn't there. As I pointed out above, I don't have any moral obligation to provide you with information--if you gather on your own, hell, that's your business. As long as only copying has occurred, what does it matter?

electromagnetic 15y ago
Jesus dude stop fucking trolling. Mail tampering isn't illegal through an accident of legislature, it's illegal because even a hundred years ago they realised its a serious deal. As long as I only copy your social insurance number, credit card numbers, banking information, etc, what does it matter? I'm just copying!
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Reading between the lines, I gather that angersock's underlying point was just that technological solutions are superior to legislative solutions, with the twist that technical capability equals moral acceptability. Apologies to angersock if I interpreted incorrectly.