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Comment by dsrguru | Hacker News Reader

If person A walked up to your window and fired shots through it, killing a family member of yours, and then person B walked up to your window out of curiosity (trespassing), saw a dead person, and called 911 (or whatever your country's emergency number is), should person B be prosecuted for murder?

Edit: I thought this was an accurate analogy, but I'm assuming the downvoter either disagreed or felt I phrased this as a sarcastic attack rather than an analogy. If it incorrectly came across as the former, that would be my fault, but I don't know if that's what caused the downvote, so an explanatory comment would be appreciated.

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Since you asked for a downvote explanation: I couldn't make any sense of the comment, even after thinking about it. It's not that I disagree, I can't even figure out the analogy. Are you saying B shouldn't be charged with anything because they didn't murder, or B should be charged with trespassing but not murder, or B should be charged with felony murder because of the trespass, or something else?

The parent asked whether the OP should be treated differently from people actually doing the malicious act. My analogy was meant to illustrate that we should.

I didn't express a stance either way on whether he should be prosecuted for a more minor offense or not, in the analogy's case trespassing. (There are obviously both pros and cons in the precedent set by prosecuting people for revealing their own minor crime on account of reporting a terrible one.)

That is NOT an accurate analogy.. to make it analogous, you need at least two fixes: a) the person needs not simply see from window, but to get into your basement from breaking a double-panned window, and go up into your bedroom. b) Also the charge needs to be for 'intrusion'

Plus, using 'murder' and 'family' and 'dead' etc. are too dramatic and personal and unnecessary to convey your point about internet security.

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