Ugh, do you have to remind me? The community here is becoming so risk averse I can't fathom how they expect to hack by any definition. The Manifesto was from an era when the hardware you owned was practically a useless toy, and learning about computers almost required sneaking some time. The well off were able to take it more legitimately from their institutions at night, but what about everyone else? And what about systems that even the well off couldn't play with? Jobs was adamant that Apple never would have existed without him and Woz cutting their teeth blue boxing (a crime which sadly in modern times would be labeled terrorism, with extradition from anywhere in the world). How far ahead of the game do you really think you can get when you're asking permission at every step? Just don't be malicious.
I wish we could drill this mentality into everyone.
Can we have a HN old farts T shirts for us old timers :-)
I'd argue that's what we're moving towards.
Kids these days.
One of the arguments I make against black hat hacking when I answer emails to (mostly) kids is that there is soooo much available you can do to fulfill your wildest geeky dreams. I'm around 90% sure that, were I growing up now, I would have eschewed cracking and instead be hip deep in some nerdvana corner of the maker universe, wiring cats up for spaceflight or something similar.
> People who think that are idiots.
> Kids these days.
I try my best to keep the level of Hacker News discourse high, but your response is incredibly rude.
Taking down a large part of the internet was not a good thing, but obviously the guy had/has a lot to offer society, and not ruining his life with prison was the right call.
A lot of us are not that different, either in terms of what we came from, or where we are now.
"We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals." "Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for."
One of the charges against Aaron was Wire Fraud, because he did just that - entering the name "Gary Host" into a captive portal to register for wifi access.
Congratulations, you're a felon too.
Since I do not follow the EULA/license agreement for each website, and I send a handshake requesting files over a webserver, I am in violation of federal law for unauthorized computer usage.
That's fucking bullshit.