4 ms·

"Registering multiple false user names? Giving false feedback?" Well then, unless your actual name is "tjic" then we are both criminals right off the bat. And

by sho 18y ago

"Registering multiple false user names? Giving false feedback?" Well then, unless your actual name is "tjic" then we are both criminals right off the bat. And since when is the government in the business of checking whether feedback is "false" or not? That's the company's job. It's not illegal to lie unless you are under oath, and nobody was. "Restraint of trade?" I don't see how Amazon's trade has been restrained in any way, shape or form. Unless you consider criticism or bad reputation to be restraint of trade, in which case any criticism is fair game. Very dangerous ground. "but I have no problem at all with the government enforcing laws against using aliases to log into a system and inject bad data in order to create a public relations firestorm?" Who says it's bad data? What's wrong with aliases? You're trying to legislate against intent. And your example of how Joe Schmoe should be protected even though he's slagging off Microsoft - MS will say that's bad data bringing a PR firestorm. It just doesn't work. "I'd be somewhat pissed if someone used my flawed front door lock (pickable by anyone with a set of picks, 60 seconds to spare, and decent picking skills) against me." Dear god, not this argument again. Look, physical security is NOT the same as network security. It is impossible to totally guarantee physical security. It is possible, even easy, to create perfect network security. The two are totally at odds. Creating a few fake accounts and submitting some votes (which Amazon encourages) is not even remotely similar to breaking into your house and placing signs advertising your partiality to child molestation. You are giving Amazon a free pass for their lax security practises, and placing all the blame on some random guy who had the balls to admit he did it. And if it was illegal, the only thing that would change is that he wouldn't have admitted it. You can't have laws like that. You may as well try to make a law that everyone has to be nice.

stcredzero 18y ago
Dear god, not this argument again. Sometimes that's a sign that your point of view is out of whack. (And being able to realize this is a mark of true learning. And yeah, it is painful sometimes.) What happened here is more like Whole Foods setting out free samples. If someone concocted a scheme to walk out the front door with all of the free samples, I would not be at all surprised if the perpetrator were taken off to jail. "But Whole Foods encourages you to take them!" yeah, right. Something smacks of rationalization here.
- sho 18y ago
  "Sometimes that's a sign that your point of view is out of whack." Same goes for you, of course ; ) Unfortunately, regardless of who is ethically right or wrong, my view will retain the upper hand, for the simple fact that the network is global, and whatever laws you pass in any country will not, nor ever, apply to all. For this simple reason you must continue to consider security the sole responsible of the proprietor, and assume the complete legal immunity of the customer/attacker (same thing). "If someone concocted a scheme to walk out the front door with all of the free samples" I do not particularly care for the idea of the judiciary being involved in rationing out Whole Foods' free samples. I do see your point - theft is theft, after all - but do you really want to make an obvious prank illegal? Outright shoplifting is one thing. Pranks are another, and they were free samples. You're so enthusiastic to consider intent in your other examples, why forget all about it in this one?
  - stcredzero 18y ago
    If someone is going to alter my storefront sign, it's vandalism, intent as a prank or no. If they leave it that way for a few days, then I have every right to seek redress, especially if it affects my livelihood in some way. It's not the intent as a prank that's the problem. It's the intent to have the particular effect that he did. I'm sure Amazon's Terms of Use would preclude what he did.
tjic 18y ago
> Well then, unless your actual name is "tjic" then we are both criminals right off the bat. Under US law, there is no such thing as a sole "actual" name. Any name that you use for non-fraudulent purposes is a legitimate name. TJIC is my initials: Travis James Ignatius Corcoran. I have been using it as a legitimate name for 15 years. My mom addresses emails and letters to me using that name. So, no, I'm not a criminal. ...but if someone signed up for an account at Amazon using 500 different names, and one of them was "TJIC", and the intent was to inject bad data ... yes, that person would be a criminal.
- sho 18y ago
  Cool name! : ) "but if someone signed up for an account at Amazon using 500 different names, and one of them was "TJIC", and the intent was to inject bad data ... yes, that person would be a criminal." No way. Guaranteeing the integrity of Amazon's Customer Review data is not the job of the state. Guaranteeing the legitimacy of the name(s) used to sign up for accounts is not the job of the state. Assessing the state of mind of someone filling in Amazon's complaints form is not the job of the state. I am kind of amazed you think the government or the law should be even tangentially involved in any of this.
  - tjic 18y ago
    > No way. Guaranteeing the integrity of Amazon's Customer Review data is not the job of the state According to many theories, much of the point of the state is to lower transaction costs. That's why states get involved in things like creating default rental agreements, setting up standards of weight and measure, inspecting pumps at gas stations, stamping out ponzi schemes, running courts to enforce slander laws (even when the target is a corporation), etc. I'm a pretty extreme libertarian. I'd like 99% of the government to go away. Maybe more. ...but I'm going to assume that we're holding this debate in the real world, not in a science-fictional Heinlein-esque anarcho-capitalist moon colony. ...and if that's the case, then 99.9% of people think the job of the state DOES include stopping people from intentionally gumming up third party transactions.

by sho 18y ago

stcredzero 18y ago

Dear god, not this argument again. Sometimes that's a sign that your point of view is out of whack. (And being able to realize this is a mark of true learning. And yeah, it is painful sometimes.) What happened here is more like Whole Foods setting out free samples. If someone concocted a scheme to walk out the front door with all of the free samples, I would not be at all surprised if the perpetrator were taken off to jail. "But Whole Foods encourages you to take them!" yeah, right. Something smacks of rationalization here.

sho 18y ago
"Sometimes that's a sign that your point of view is out of whack." Same goes for you, of course ; ) Unfortunately, regardless of who is ethically right or wrong, my view will retain the upper hand, for the simple fact that the network is global, and whatever laws you pass in any country will not, nor ever, apply to all. For this simple reason you must continue to consider security the sole responsible of the proprietor, and assume the complete legal immunity of the customer/attacker (same thing). "If someone concocted a scheme to walk out the front door with all of the free samples" I do not particularly care for the idea of the judiciary being involved in rationing out Whole Foods' free samples. I do see your point - theft is theft, after all - but do you really want to make an obvious prank illegal? Outright shoplifting is one thing. Pranks are another, and they were free samples. You're so enthusiastic to consider intent in your other examples, why forget all about it in this one?
- stcredzero 18y ago
  If someone is going to alter my storefront sign, it's vandalism, intent as a prank or no. If they leave it that way for a few days, then I have every right to seek redress, especially if it affects my livelihood in some way. It's not the intent as a prank that's the problem. It's the intent to have the particular effect that he did. I'm sure Amazon's Terms of Use would preclude what he did.

tjic 18y ago

> Well then, unless your actual name is "tjic" then we are both criminals right off the bat. Under US law, there is no such thing as a sole "actual" name. Any name that you use for non-fraudulent purposes is a legitimate name. TJIC is my initials: Travis James Ignatius Corcoran. I have been using it as a legitimate name for 15 years. My mom addresses emails and letters to me using that name. So, no, I'm not a criminal. ...but if someone signed up for an account at Amazon using 500 different names, and one of them was "TJIC", and the intent was to inject bad data ... yes, that person would be a criminal.

sho 18y ago
Cool name! : ) "but if someone signed up for an account at Amazon using 500 different names, and one of them was "TJIC", and the intent was to inject bad data ... yes, that person would be a criminal." No way. Guaranteeing the integrity of Amazon's Customer Review data is not the job of the state. Guaranteeing the legitimacy of the name(s) used to sign up for accounts is not the job of the state. Assessing the state of mind of someone filling in Amazon's complaints form is not the job of the state. I am kind of amazed you think the government or the law should be even tangentially involved in any of this.
- tjic 18y ago
  > No way. Guaranteeing the integrity of Amazon's Customer Review data is not the job of the state According to many theories, much of the point of the state is to lower transaction costs. That's why states get involved in things like creating default rental agreements, setting up standards of weight and measure, inspecting pumps at gas stations, stamping out ponzi schemes, running courts to enforce slander laws (even when the target is a corporation), etc. I'm a pretty extreme libertarian. I'd like 99% of the government to go away. Maybe more. ...but I'm going to assume that we're holding this debate in the real world, not in a science-fictional Heinlein-esque anarcho-capitalist moon colony. ...and if that's the case, then 99.9% of people think the job of the state DOES include stopping people from intentionally gumming up third party transactions.