Electronic Hacking

Dear Jacob:

I think hacking is a form of trespass. It is an invasion. Is it ever justified? Sure. But only against criminals. Or evil governments. But wait. I repeat myself.

Best regards,

Walter

From: Jacob Lovell

Sent: Friday, March 06, 2020 9:34 AM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]

Subject: Re: Sequel to Defending the Undefendable

Dr. Block,

As I work through my thoughts in an organized fashion, I’ve been unable to defend hacking as it appears to ultimately be a form of fraud no matter how I frame it. I apologise for promising to get you something on this. I will be at the AERC if you want to talk through that or my other ideas.

Thanks,

-J

On Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 3:20 PM Walter Block <[email protected] wrote:

Dear Jacob:

Thanks. I appreciate this.

Send me something on hacking, please.

Best regards,

Walter

From: Jacob Lovell

Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2020 1:48 PM

To: Walter Block <[email protected]

Subject: Re: Sequel to Defending the Undefendable

Dr. Block,

Enjoying your appearances on Tom Woods show. I wanted to remind you of the ideas I sent you years ago, in case you wanted to use them in the third installment, included below. I also thought of a way to defend computer hackers if you think hacking is defensible via the NAP.

Have a nice day,

-J

-The anti-gay funeral protestors – The Westboro Baptist Church is

demonized by everyone, but they’re really a marvelous group to behold.

These small-minded bigots show how their words are ultimately not

harmful in the way that breaches of the NAP are, leftist bleeding

hearts be damned.  Sticks and stones can break bones, but because

words cannot, they should never be outlawed.  Their pickets show how

society can tolerate the most crass, the most offensive, the most

disgusting utterances imaginable.  People figure out peaceful ways to

solve the problem since laws against the picketers have routinely (and

justifiably) been thrown out of court.  Instead of relying on

government, people use free speech to combat free speech, bringing in

motorcycle parades and flags and drowning out the ugliness of the

small group that’s there.  Where government fails to uphold the values

of society via government tactics, people must make their own

solutions.  A better solution than these would be to privatize the

areas where the picketers protest.  Were streets and sidewalks

private, the owners would be responsible for the message they’re

sending out from their property – private owners could still allow for

picketers to harass nearby funerals, but at least then such property

owners could be held responsible through ostracism, something you

can’t do to government to punish it for sending out a message you

don’t like.  Because government has an anything goes policy, the use

of the public space is chaotic and cannot be coordinated efficiently –

it’s a kind of tragedy of the commons, where the picketers and

anti-picketers are racing for the limited resources of protest-space

(audibly, physically, visually, etc).  The chaos that such protests

creates shows the failure of government control of public spaces, even

while statists pretend like it’s some great victory because such

intolerant people are tolerated and that must somehow be because the

government exists the way that it does.  That’s not a great victory at

all, people should have (non-violent) recourse

Internet Pirates – They drive prices down for consumers and increase

choice because content creators are forced to be more responsive to

consumers.  For example, movies and television shows become available

to purchase in stores much sooner after TV and theater showings than

they used to.  In another example, video game developers – whose

customer base is filled with tech savvy young people who are more

capable of pirating copyrighted content than the average consumers of

other forms of media – are forced to focus more on customer service

and ease of use, something that Gabe Newell (a very successful video

game maker) openly admits for being the reason that he designed his

Steam game service the way that he did.  Further, internet privacy is

a protest to the illegitimate government invention of intellectual

property, so they’re heroic.

Pornographers – Areas where pornography is legal and freely available

have seen reductions in sexual assaults according to at least one

study I’ve read.  Further, women in this profession make way more

money than men, so even if the myth that women make less than men were

true, this profession helps prevent some of that.

Child pornography distributors – obviously this doesn’t include

*makers* of child pornography, since molesting a child is a violation

of the NAP, but people who only distribute (and do not create) this

content are a different story.  By sharing this material in the sundry

depths of the internet, law enforcement is able to collect evidence

about the crimes being depicted in the pictures and videos.  In turn,

victims and abusers might be identified, and children can be rescued

from their abusive captors.  If not for these child pornography

distribution rings, these crimes might never see the light of day,

allowing for perpetrators to continue to hurt their victims in private

and with little hope of capture.  Some people claim that these

distribution networks increase the likelihood of children being

victimized because the perverts are rewarded for their crimes.  This

seems like an unconvincing argument – most child sex abuse victims do

not have pictures or video to show what’s happened to them.

Considering that these victims are the least likely to be able to

remember and communicate their abuse to those who have the power to

stop it, one would hope for such evidence to become widely available

enough to be found by someone who can stop the abuse.   It seems

probable that such perverts would still abuse children whether or not

there is a distribution ring that (may or may not) reward them for

their sick actions.  Because of government’s ham-handed approach,

child pornography distribution rings have simply become more and more

underground and less able to be found by law enforcement, cutting off

a valuable source of evidence for the actual crime of sexual assault.

Televangelists, cult leaders, and advocates of ‘alternative’ medicine

– A fool and his money are soon parted, and I think that’s a good

thing.  Excepting for cases of clear-cut fraud, these types of people

help society in a number of ways.  First, it allows for people to help

self-identify as idiots, which in turn helps those around them be wary

of said idiots.  If I’m associating with someone who starts talking

about crystal healing or how genetically modified food causes cancer,

I know that I can stop wasting my time and better allocate my limited

life to other ends.  Without such an obvious signaling mechanism, I

might not realize that I’m dealing with a moron so quickly and will

take time that I’ll later regret wasting.  Second, such people are

much more likely to die of curable diseases or become too poor to feed

themselves, thus killing off morons who probably are a drain on

society and maybe cleaning up the gene pool a little.  Third, for

those that aren’t killed by their own stupidity, people learn to be

less gullible and more realistic, so maybe they’ll avoid much more

dangerous scams in the future.

Genetic engineers – scientists have increased food production thanks

to GMO, reducing food prices and allowing for crops that are more

drought/disease/pest resistant.  These factors in turn help the

poorest people who live in the harshest areas to better be able to

purchase or grow food.  It’s too bad that governments in Africa, home

to many people who are as described above, have banned the importation

of GMO food, including the free food they are offered by richer

countries.  This in turn contributes to the crippling poverty and

starvation the people on that continent have to endure, something much

more immediate than whatever negative long-term health consequences

that GMO foods supposedly have.

Dear :

Best regards,

Walter

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1:00 pm on May 25, 2020