Ramblings of Narc

Leo Notenboom asks: “Where are the ethics?” in a post dated Feb. 14th, 2006. Almost two years later, I’ve stumbled across it, and I have to say I completely agree. The comments are worth a read, too, if you’ve got the time.

I estimate that somewhere between a quarter and a half of all questions asked [of me via email] are attempts to deceive, steal, hack or hide from the repercussions of questionable activity.

Not a day goes by that I don’t get a ton of “please recover my password” requests. Some may be legit I suppose, but many are blatant or poorly-disguised attempts to get me to supply a password into someone else’s account.

Okay, so I’ll admit he’s particularly visible as a tech/security writer, so his audience is self-selecting in that regard (Google can be pretty annoying sometimes; search for “crack hotmail password” and see if the first 10 results aren’t all security sites explaining how annoying and/or illegal that is), but this still seems to match the general “feel” of what non-tech interest in computers is about. At least a quarter of these people really are interested in doing nefarious things!

I think I know why, though. The computer world, to them, isn’t real. It’s all just a video game, on a perhaps subconscious level. They aren’t hurting real people. At least, that’s what most of the wannabe-hackers are probably thinking.

And then there’s the weirdos, the people who think their boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse’s business is *always* their business and “why would they not tell me the password unless they’re hiding something?” — to which I’d say, if you can’t trust them, don’t bother to stay with them anymore. A relationship is built on trust. That is its foundation. If you’ve lost it, you will break up/divorce within the year, so just get a head start and admit they’re not for you.

Sorry, didn’t mean to turn this into a lecture. My actual point in posting this was to show you a man who, at 50 years old (well, 48 at the time of making that podcast), still cares. I hope I still care when I’m 50; I hope I don’t turn into a cynical bastard like this world seems to want me to. ‘Cause I’ll say one thing: the temptation is *definitely* there.