Exploit

January 25, 2004

Computers are a pain. People seem to think that computers should manage their ethics. “If a computer lets me do it,” they think, “it is OK for me to do it.”

Of course, computers are fallible beasties as are the people who program them, so there are not always the rules in place to force people to be ethical.

In MOGs (like Star Wars Galaxies), “exploit” is a noun. An “exploit” is a bug that allows you to do things in the game that you shouldn’t be able to do and aids you in some significant fashion. We apparently just had a number of players banned from the game for, er, exploiting an exploit.

Although the computer let them do it, they were banned for taking advantage of the system. They knew they were wrong, they got caught at it, they were banned. “The computer let me” is no excuse.

Neither is it an excuse for Republicans.

As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.

I don’t know who told what when, of course, but “my tech told your tech” isn’t sufficient. I know from personal experience that tech communication isn’t all that solid…

EllIphat287: dude, u r so ownz0red! all ur base r blong 2 us! lol
JackAzz: bite me
EllIphat287: wanna qakeIII
JackAzz: yeh, let me close the door
EllIphat287: ur owned

… but even if someone refuses to lock their doors you don’t go in and steal their stuff. Senator and Senate Judiciary Chairman Orin Hatch seems to have the right idea about this: ”[I am] mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch.”

On the other hand, Judiciary committee member Manuel Miranda says:

There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule,” Miranda said. “Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. . . . These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff.

In other words, it’s their fault for putting the papers in the way of an (allegedly) known exploit, and besides it’s not a crime anyway because these memos are public property.

A strong argument, perhaps, but stupid. I wonder if the idea that intra-party memos are public property is one that sits well with Republican congresspeople as easily as it does with Mr. Miranda. Miranda should be careful of the ricochet effect such claims have…

Posted in Politics