Hacker News Reader

Comment by ergothus | Hacker News Reader

> Because a nice fella from the security team at RIM will give you a call on your personal cell phone one late night and tell you that they know what you’re doing and to stop it.

I don't know if anyone else has this reaction, but I find this to be a great alternative to the litigiousness that is normally reported.

> So I stopped that night.

...and good on you for allowing "not suing" to be a successful option. (I'm taking no position on the behavior BEFORE you got caught, but once you were, you didn't "force" them into more extreme options)

View on HN

Seems a bit in the clouds. The poster knowingly took ownership of stolen property and got a warning over it. Stopping after you're caught doesn't right your wrong.

> Stopping after you're caught doesn't right your wrong.

Nope! I still remain happy to see that something gets stopped without legal action, and seeing a company that didn't go for the throat succeeding in their defense.

Just because a wrong isn't righted doesn't mean we can't be happy the situation didn't get worse.

A refreshing view. So many people seem to emotionally need some sort of social vindication of their injury, or in some other way feel dissatisfied if there isn't third-party shaming/punishment/etc. involved in conflict resolution.

Sometimes, the best approach is "Yo, can you cut that out?"

Somehow I think if the poster conspired to steal your own cell phone, you'd feel differently. What about a shoplifter at Target? You're implying that companies prosecuting theft are somehow morally inferior to RIM.

Bit of a straw man isn't that? Your one single cell phone is a bit different from one of hundreds of prototypes not owned by anyone in particular or even intended for sale.

I would be mad at someone stealing prototypes I use for development.

> Somehow I think if the poster conspired to steal your own cell phone, you'd feel differently

I'm not sure I would, depending on what you mean.

Would I be more upset about someone conspiring to harm an individual as opposed to taking investigative actions that MIGHT harm a company by spreading information? Yes.

Would I feel that someone stopping their conspiracy to steal my phone when I caught them and called them out wasn't enough? Probably not. There was bad, it was stopped, that's still a good ending.

Would I be nervous that whoever was so conspiring wouldn't just stop when asked? Yes, admittedly. But that doesn't mean that harsher punishments actually fix that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com