Call yourself a 'hacker', watch your ex-boss seize your PC without warning

Re: CEH'ers

You are correct of course, there is are legitimate uses for hacking. I think there's a marketing/branding issue that needs to be addressed though. The black hats already own the public perception of the term and that isn't likely to change. The 'good guys' need to come up with a suitably cool, but different term for themselves.

A bit of brand management worked wonders for the mercenary industry. Mercenaries are rough, unstructured lunatics from Africa and security services are organized professionals in matching uniforms from 'white' countries. The reality is they're the same thing, but the security services have positioned themselves as 'legitimate forces for good' while simultaneously deriding the term mercenary. There's a lot of fluffy bullshit in marketing, but there's a lot to be gained through it as well.

Penetration testing is absolutely horrible branding and 'ethical hacker' is confusing to anyone outside the industry; like 'gentleman thief'. Somebody really needs to work on that.

Re: Legal System Fail

I don't know where you have been since 9/11. The frank and frightening possibility of TERRISM is EVERYWHERE and WILL BE USED TO THE FULL EXTEND OF THE LAW OF MEN!

The Volksgerichtshof is now in session.

Re: enlightenment from the Digital Bond blog post

>(Part of the TRO requires Battelle to return the hard drive to Southfork in the exact

>condition in which their retained forensic expert received it.)

Some fictional quoting: "Hmm, we got the harddrive and when we plugged it in, it said no file system, please format this drive, so we formatted the drive and there was no data on it, you can have it back now"

Re: enlightenment from the Digital Bond blog post

Thanks for the summary Irony Deficient..,

In the name of fair play Battelle should hand over all their hard drives to the court as well so there can be no question that they simply copied the source code from his hard drive...

Re: Next...

"

"Doctor": The government has to right to control your prices

"Manager": The government has the right to control your salary

"Muslim": The government has the right to control your end-of-life

"Reporter": The government has the right to control your sources

"Non-Aligned Politician": The government has the right to control your funding

"Citizen": The government has the right to control your healthcare

"

Unfortunately, over the last couple of years I've had to make extensive use of both the social services and the health system.

Yet, even here in commie-Britain, I haven't had any prices to pay, and have had complete control over when/how/what has happened.

I have a few personal American friends who have had little to no control of things when they've gotten ill. One had to self medicate for his skin cancer, another lost all his savings (and nearly his house).

I've been quite free to live my life and recouperate without any hassle or worry or financial burdens.

Mind you, as I get my current medication delivered to me for free, I guess I don't have as much freedom as those who have to scour the internet for it.

And it's not a UK thing - It's pretty much the same in the overwhelming majority of first-world countries.

It's because I generally like Americans, and have quite a few American friends (not just online aquaintances) that the whole selfish uninformed position you and your ilk hold, pisses me off so much.

I am under no illusion I live in the best place in the world, and will readily agree with criticisms (even made by Americans) of many of the shitty things or government/police do, but when I hear some overly patriotic Americans spout the 'land of the free' / 'best country in the world' etc. it really pisses me off. These type of ignorant people are what allows the current system to exist.

Your 'swear allegance to the flag' and 'beware evil socialist pinko commies' brainwashing from since you were in high-school does you no favours.

I have no major beef with some right wing things - whilst I tend to veer to the left, I'm quite moderate, and I guess some of my opinions may be considered over here as right wing (whilst to you I'm presumably a bloody bleeding heart socialist commie etc.)

Read the Republican partys manifesto of 50 or so years ago, and it is far more 'socialist' than the Democrats of today!

These days, Republicans are soley out to protect the rich and big businesses.. Hell, they don't even make it a secret anymore.

And whilst I'm here, why are so many Americans (refreshingly, NOT the vast majority that post here) so insecure that they get pissed off if a non-American criticises something that happens in America - and think that by speaking up we are saying it's all good here? - You know, it's not automatically a competition.

When we were critiscising the USA over prism, we weren't implying that our government is great. Indeed, many have posted their criticism of the stuff GCHQ has done - Indeed, despite their posturing, I'm sure the UK government would have gone as far as prism etc. If they had the resources - and of course, they are deeply involved with prism etc. anyway - I've not seen anyone post here saying otherwise.

Yet, when another Prism story was posted, 'asdf' got all offended by all the Brits criticising it and not so much the UKs shite, even though - guess what - it was a story about the NSA not GCHQ. How dare we Brits be critical of something we don't like that happens in other countries!

Ok, I know I've gone off on a rant, and to be fair to 'Destroy All Monsters' most of this isn't directed at him/her. But I still stand by what I've written, and I know many Americans who would agree with me, without feeling personally insulted or threatened.

Still, if it wasn't for your screwed up system, we wouldn't have had 'Breaking Bad' - A show that could never be set in any other civilised country in the world.

Re: Next...

That'll teach you.

You can compare your fellow citizens to Nazis till the cows come home, and get nothing but upvotes. One crack (out of six) about an institution respected in the UK, and you collect downvotes.

Re: How can a judge overrule a constitution

Presumably he just ruled that the seizure wasn't unreasonable.

Re: How can a judge overrule a constitution

Calling yourself a hacker is the equivalent of saying you are a bank robber , and don't get pedantic on the meaning of the word, in common use hacker = criminal.

If you openly admit to being a criminal then its gives the the authorities just cause to believe a crime is taking place and you the police are quite entitled to kick your door down without a warrant

Re: On reading the article

No. It is simply a case of the judge being wrong, likely due to not understanding the subject matter in addition to the misrepresentations by the plaintiff. Had the plaintiff's claims been 100% true, the ex parte order is appropriate.

Either way here is the defendant's response (see page 4, particularly "I completed conflict-of-interest paperwork and spoke with representatives in the Battelle Conflict of Interest office (in particular a Mr. Moriarty) and was informed that my proposed involvement in Southfork was permissible."):

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/808844/thuenresponse.txt

Re: On reading the article

Not always.

The very point (indeed the definition) of an ex parte decision is that it is made with only one party present. This is proper in certain circumstances and the job of the magistrate in these instances is to assess the evidence presented and decide if an ex parte order is warranted.

In the case, the deciding factor was apparently that Thuen used the terms 'hacker' and 'hacking' in reference to his business. As he is an experienced programmer specialising in security, one must assume that the judge was commenting not so much on the technical ability but the inherent malicious behaviour that, in his mind, characterises 'hackers'.

Such an ex parte order is, as the judge rightfully noted, quite an exceptional thing and should not be given lightly. Unfortunately, it would appear that the judge did not make any serious attempt to independently ascertain the validity of the arguments and instead simply accepted everything Battelle were saying.

Given the intrusion and seriousness of claim that such an order represents, it is unacceptable that the Judge did not take reasonable steps to be sure first.

Even if we assume that the Visdom code was copied from Sophia, the truth of that alone is not enough as that would be settled through normal proceedings. What prompted the ex parte order was the allegation by Battelle that Thuen would do the following if not prevented:

1. Release the source code

2. Cover his tracks

As people have pointed out, the code was already released and attributable to Thuen (via GitHub) so there is nothing to prevent.

TL;DR - In cases like this, ex parte orders are granted when there is a genuine risk that real and lasting damage will be done by informing the other party before taking action.

Every covert surveillance warrant (e.g. 'wiretapping') is essentially an ex parte order due to the fact that telling someone you are listening to their phone calls will likely defeat the purpose of listening to those calls in the first place.

In this case, the stated purpose of the order was to prevent release of the code but the action taken (seizure) could never have prevented that for the simple fact that the code was ALREADY released.

Re: Here's my application the NASA space program...

Welcome aboard! We are sure you are aware that due to the "Affordable Care Act" costs, all future astronauts most bring their own sponsorship. We provide the hardware and you will be provided a 12" X 12" prime location for your sponsor's advertising. Please make the check out to either Elon Musk or Roscosmos.