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Comment by lysace | Hacker News Reader

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Hold on, I need to capture and circulate this claim that I'm a "very obvious leftist" to my friends and acquaintances. Thanks, this made my day.

> I need to capture and circulate this claim that I'm a "very obvious leftist" to my friends and acquaintances.

s/leftist/Catholic/g; (in a good sense)

I don't know how obvious my Catholicism is but my mom will be glad to hear that. :)

Just gotta say that this thread really delivered in so many ways.

Thank you for constantly removing some of the veils from the mystery of our computational universe.

The notion that you’re a very obvious leftist seems asinine to anyone who has seen your comment history in these digital catacombs for the last decades.

A felony conviction, three years probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $25,000 (inflation adjusted) fine for a novel non-violent crime with no personal material benefit isn't exactly "got away with it"

Yes, that is getting away with it for someone with means and clout.

That's a values debate, I guess. What is the purpose of punishment? Is it to set an example to others, is it to remove a dangerous person from society, is it to prevent the criminal from reoffending, is it to satisfy society's desire to see wrongdoers punished?

He didn't reoffend (as far as we know), and in fact went on to become a highly-contributing member of society. His crime was not so egregious that recompense was impossible even in principle. I don't see how a harsher punishment for him would have produced an obviously better outcome. I think it would be more productive to argue that people who commit similar crimes should receive similar punishments as this, rather than arguing that he should have received a harsher punishment.

I don't think this is as much about the purpose of punishment as it is about the monkeys with the grapes and the cucumbers.

in those days computer crimes weren't punished that harshly. I'm surprised it was that severe, in fact, it sounds like there must have been some heavy hitters on the prosecution side.

I think the story is that this was one of the first ever prosecutions under the CFAA and they quickly realized that the fact it had taken down so many systems was an accident (there was a bug in the replication code). The prosecution was mainly to establish precedent in an emerging field of law and technology.

You can't judge his behaviour without knowing his intent, and the culture of the late 80s and early internet.

Everyone hacked. When the internet was connected to Sydney University early 90s, all the students were grabbing Stanfords /etc/passwd files and peeking at the open X displays of people in Sweden. Etc. All for fun / curiosity.

You can be sure that even rtm's Dad did similar, perhaps confined to his lab / peers.

> very obvious leftist activist stance

Is there something wrong with being a "leftist"?

There's no need to "insult" people. What I'm seeing in his comments is just a successful tech bro admiring and defending a fellow tech bro, "boys will be boys" style. I don't think it has anything to do with politics.

In this corner: leftist activist!

And in this corner: successful tech bro!

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