On Wed, 2003-10-22 at 08:53, Chad Walstrom wrote: > On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 08:45:44AM -0500, Troy.A Johnson wrote: > > Making the tools "illegal" robs me, not a criminal intent on using > > them. If he already plans to attack my computers illegally, I don't > > think acquiring or constructing an "illegal" tool to do so will make > > him "think twice". > > Exactly. The type of argument Sam is presenting sounds wonderful to > people like politicians. Regulate the tool and crime cannot be > committed. This is exactly the type of mentality that the RIAA has > against P2P filesharing applications. It's exactly the mentality that > has plagued the decss cases. Possession of a tool does not make a > criminal act. Application of a tool in an illegal manner does. > > Let's keep that distinction clear and free of morality agendas. I agree. Making something against the law only keeps it out of the hands of those who follow the law. If they can root systems they can certainly download illegal code. Yes rootkits are spawned of ill-intent but what if the people who had do defend against them suddenly could not legally see how they worked? What if someone put a rootkit on your system and told the cops you are rooting systems? Can you prove it is not your rootkit? It would give the criminals a big advantage to have this code outlawed. Even if you could magically make all root kits disappear there are still people who know how to rewrite them, and they would. We need to figure out how to catch these people and prosecute them and make it hurt when they are convicted. Should we as a group start a honeypot project? Perhaps some DA looking to get reelected would work with us. -- Tom Penney <blots at visi.com> _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list