[free-sklyarov] Hacker

[alfee cube]

im tempted to view it as a judicial slap? anyone want
to talk me out of this view?

--- Austin Hook
<marvin at qubit.computershop.calgary.ab.ca> wrote:
> 
>     Thank god there's a judge with at least some
> sense. $50K bail in a
> case like this, is not excessive, especially with
> the vindictive folks in
> the fed prosecutors office claiming he is a flight
> risk.  Bodes well for
> success of a motion to dismiss later this year.  
> 
>     (Correct me if I am wrong, reading the, only
> $50K bail being granted,
> as a good sign of what that judge is thinking.)
> 
>     Now I think it's time to start deprecating the
> word hacker where
> Dmitry is concerned.   Although Dmitry's work is of
> interest to hackers of
> both the good and bad types,  when major media uses
> the work hacker, we
> know what they mean.  They mean it as in "criminal".
> 
> 
>     What I have seen is that Dmitry is just a
> serious researcher and
> programmer, just doing his job, and does not even
> fit the model of
> ordinary hacker: the kind who make new programs
> mostly just for fun,
> amusement and glory, or creates work arounds, bends
> software into shape to
> accomplish something novel, all without violating
> anyone's copyright much
> less profiting by distributing "pirated" copies of
> commercial software, or
> releasing damaging viruses to the world.  Hacker
> basically just means
> someone good enough to "hack" through a jungle of
> code without an official
> road map.
> 
>     So I think newspapers who use headlines
> "Hacker... Dmitry ..." should
> be threatened for suit for defamation, with
> sufficient remedy being to
> publish either a retraction, or else a detailed
> explanation of how
> "hacker" need not be interpreted as criminal.  This
> should not be
> necessary for publications whose targeted readership
> already knows this,
> but for publications that are deliberately using the
> word "hacker",
> knowing that their readership is ignorant of the
> fair meaning of "hacker"
> then, if they are not doing it to defame, they must
> provide sufficient and
> constant clarification to their readership what they
> mean by hacker,
> sufficient that at least a majority of their
> readership knows that they
> are not implying that hacker=criminal, and why a
> hacker is not a criminal
> in general.
> 
>    I also don't think that "renegade of the year"
> awards, or such
> notoriety is appropriate where Dmitry is concerned. 
> He's just a competent
> guy doing top notch work, and an innocent victim of
> unjust interpretations
> of unjust legislation, visiting what is getting to
> be an unjust country.  
> There is no need to draft him into a mould that he
> doesn't fit, and I
> don't think it helps his case.  Not that such a fate
> should happen to a
> true hacker either.
> 
>    We will have plenty of true hackers that will get
> into trouble if this
> law sticks around. And there will be plenty of
> occasion to point out how
> even non-hackers risk their freedom from this new
> oppression.
> 
> Austin Hook
> 
>     
> 
> 
> 
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