Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990

Re:Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990 by denzil_correa on Friday January 18, 2013 @08:52AM (#5078563)

I am a bit surprised Richard Feynman does not figure in this discussion possibly because he existed "before PC". Paul Graham in his essay "The Word 'hacker'" writes [0]

    Believe it or not, the two senses of "hack" are also 
    connected. Ugly and imaginative solutions have something 
    in common: they both break the rules. And there is a 
    gradual  continuum between rule breaking that's merely 
    ugly (using duct tape to attach something to your bike) 
    and rule breaking that is brilliantly imaginative 
    (discarding Euclidean space).


    Hacking predates computers. When he was working on the
    Manhattan Project, Richard Feynman used to amuse himself 
    by breaking into safes containing secret documents. This 
    tradition continues today. When we were in grad school, a 
    hacker friend of mine who spent too much time around MIT 
    had his own lock picking kit. (He now runs a hedge fund, 
    a not unrelated enterprise.)

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html

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Re:Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990 by glurgh on Friday January 18, 2013 @11:00AM (#5079244)

possibly because he existed "before PC"

Or more likely because the situation, context and Feynman's actions were highly dissimilar. If you haven't had a chance, take a look at the story in the original source, it's a lot more detailed than an aside in a PG essay.

http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...

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Re:Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990 by Shenglong on Friday January 18, 2013 @12:12PM (#5079688)

Locks in themselves are quite interesting mechanisms, and I'm not surprised that people find breaking them exciting. I bought a lockpicking set a few years ago, and the first thing I do whenever I move into a new house/apartment is pick my own locks.

Keys are able to open tumbler locks almost because of the imperfection of the lock itself, and lock picks just exploit that fact. I don't know - I think the whole concept is very beautiful.

As for usefulness, I've saved several friends a couple hundred dollars by opening their doors when they're locked out. :)

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Re:Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990 by denzil_correa on Friday January 18, 2013 @12:19PM (#5079723)

Which sets do you recommend to open various types of locks?

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