I’ve been looking for something technology-related to talk about all day.  I perused Zite’s Technology section and came up pretty empty.  There was a discussion about whether certain types of hackers should be treated as criminals or not, and I think there’s room for some valid discussion there — mainly along the lines of people who set and enforce laws being largely ignorant of technology and how it’s a game changer from traditional considerations.

I’m not willing to say we ought to let young people probe and explore and experiment just because they can to see how far they can take a discovered vulnerability because that’s how they learn.  I am willing to say I think that’s a very bad idea.  On the other hand, checking to see if a vulnerability you’ve identified has been patched or not (presuming the person who found it and was checking had appropriately notified the people about it) shouldn’t be an issue.

In fact, “White Hat Hackers” have a valued role to play, but I don’t believe we’ve codified that process yet to fully protect them, and there’s an extremely fine line between the bad guys and the good guys on this issue.  Can you really trust a former bad guy to have seen the light and come clean?  Maybe.

I absolutely guarantee leaving the discussion in the hands of people who have little or no understanding about how technology really works is a supremely bad idea.  That’s why I want the US Congress to keep their ham-handed mitts off this subject. And my representative, who has been pretty good on other things but was spearheading this very bad idea last year is now in charge of the Technology Committee.  I’m pretty sure I am not going to support him on this matter.