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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

I hope that actual smart people aren't really working on this. It used to be that this kind of crazy ambition was what started the best companies. Its an almost Apple-ish goal from yesteryear. If this generation's Wozs spend their efforts simply trying to thwart dumb government, I think society will be poorer for it, even if they can watch all of the free movies they want over the blimp.

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If this generation's Wozs spend their efforts simply trying to thwart dumb government, I think society will be poorer for it.

No. If they focus just on free movies, then you're probably right, but the statement that today's hackers shouldn't 'thwart dumb government' seems misguided. Government in many ways reflects a codification of societal rules and structures, and sometimes the power centers that enforce those rules need shaking up. That might be via new methods of communication, or new social structures, or something else we haven't really considered yet, but there's no question in my mind that the crazy ambitions of TPB, Wikileaks, and other groups are shaping our future in ways that can eventually enrich us all.

Actually, Woz did do stuff like this in the past. He used to hack the phone lines to get free calls, and other stuff like that:

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/168957,rsa-2010-woz-revea...

As their first business venture together, he and Jobs sold blue boxes.

So, the irony level that was reached when Jobs ordered the creation of a locked-down cell phone platform wrapped clear around 2^32-1 and back to zero.

As opposed to hacking free phone calls from the phone company?

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