Date: 18 Jan 92 11:55:48 GMT From: nick@KRALIZEC.ZETA.ORG.AU(Nick Andrew) Subject: File 7--Re: Cud 402--Law Enforcement, the Government & You Jon Pugh writes: > If you were assigned to track down computer criminals and you >didn't know a bit from a scuzzy disk controller, where would you start >looking? On bulletin boards and at computer club meetings, of course. The above statement presupposes that "where there are bulletin boards and computer club meetings, there is computer crime". That may be true in certain places, however for the general case it is certainly incorrect. If I might make an analogy, it is akin to the logic of saying "People sometimes smoke Grass. Most people who smoke Grass drive cars. Grass-smoking drivers often carry Grass in their cars. So therefore we should search a lot of cars at random, in the hope of finding Grass smokers." The analogy leads to an undesirable situation - that of law officials interfering with people going about their business and searching their personal property without any suspicion of wrongdoing. They _hope_ to find grass, and they know if they stop 1 car in X, they will find some. The situation with computer hobbyists is as undesirable. Nobody wants law officials peeping into computer clubs trying to find a hint of wrongdoing. The logic is backwards. Firstly find the wrongdoing - the crack, or phreaking, then work towards the perpetrator. Not the other way around. Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253