Crime & Puzzlement [5/8]

From

Max Belankov (2:5054/2.31)

To

All ()

Date

1996-08-29T23:11Z

Area

PERM.LANGUAGE

Hello All!


=== Cut ===
******


On May 8, 1990, Operation Sun Devil, heretofore an apparently
random and nameless trickle of Secret Service actions, swept down
on the Legion of Doom and its ilk like a bureaucratic tsunami.  On
that day, the Secret Service served 27 search warrants in 14 cities from
Plano, Texas to New York, New York.

The law had come to Cyberspace.  When the day was over, transit
through the wide open spaces of the Virtual World would be a lot
trickier.

In a press release following the sweep, the Secret Service boasted
having shut down numerous computer bulletin boards, confiscated
 40 computers, and seized 23,000 disks.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [!!!!! -- MB]

They noted in their statement
that "the conceivable criminal violations of this operation have
serious implications for the health and welfare of all individuals,
corporations, and United States Government agencies relying on
computers and telephones to communicate."

It was unclear from their statement whether "this operation" meant
the Legion of Doom or Operation Sun Devil.  There was room to
interpret it either way.

Because the deliciously ironic truth is that, aside from the 3 page Bell
South document, the hackers had neither removed nor damaged
anyone's data. Operation Sun Devil, on the other hand, had "serious
implications" for a number of folks who relied on "computers and
telephones to communicate." They lost the equivalent of about 5.4
million pages of information.  Not to mention a few computers and
telephones.

And the welfare of the individuals behind those figures was surely in
jeopardy.  Like the story of the single mother and computer
consultant in Baltimore whose sole means of supporting herself and
her 18 year old son was stripped away early one morning.  Secret
Service agents broke down her door with sledge hammers, entered
with guns drawn, and seized all her computer equipment.
Apparently her son had also been using it...

Or the father in New York who opened the door at 6:00 AM and
found a shotgun at his nose.  A dozen agents entered.  While one of
the kept the man's wife in a choke-hold, the rest made ready to shoot
and entered the bedroom of their sleeping 14 year-old.  Before
leaving, they confiscated every piece of electronic equipment in the
house, including all the telephones.

It was enough to suggest that the insurance companies should start
writing policies against capricious governmental seizure of circuitry.

In fairness, one can imagine the government's problem.  This is all
pretty magical stuff  to them.  If I were trying to terminate the
operations of a witch coven, I'd probably seize everything in sight.
How would I tell the ordinary household brooms from the getaway
vehicles?

But as I heard more and more about the vile injustices being heaped
on my young pals in the Legion of Doom, not to mention the
unfortunate folks nearby, the less I was inclined toward such
temperate thoughts as these.  I drifted back into a 60's-style sense of
the government, thinking it a thing of monolithic and evil efficiency
and adopting an up-against-the-wall willingness to spit words like
"pig" or "fascist" into my descriptions.

In doing so, I endowed the Secret Service with a clarity of intent
which no agency of government will ever possess.  Despite almost
every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep
imagining its competence.

For some reason, it was easier to invest the Keystone Kapers of
Operation Sun Devil with malign purpose rather than confront their
absurdity straight-on.  There is, after all, a twisted kind of comfort in
political paranoia.  It provides one such a sense of orderliness to think
that the government is neither crazy nor stupid and that its plots,
though wicked, are succinct.

I was about to have an experience which would restore both my
natural sense of unreality and my unwillingness to demean the
motives of others.  I was about to see first hand the disorientation of
the law in the featureless vastness of Cyberspace.



=== Cut ===


                                 With best wishes,
           Max

Kime: Как мало человеку нужно - и как много, чтобы это понять.

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