John Linton .....not for the first time and undoubtedly not for the last time. I live in a Sydney suburb that you wouldn't associate with such petty larceny (the majority of the inhabitants are too busy committing grand larceny) other than the moral standards of current Australian society have fallen so far such petty dishonesty occurs everywhere. The fact that someone else has paid for something and will suffer some sort of minor inconvenience by being deprived of what they have paid for is irrelevant to so many Australians today and follows the on line theft practised by so many Australians - "because I can steal without the likelihood of suffering the consequences, why not do it?"
I doubt that there is any internet user who hasn't received scam emails for the 'Nigerian Government' offering them untold millions if they will simply send their bank account details to the benign sender and the thousands of other similar scams. Apparently these scams reap their criminal perpetrators billions of dollars a year (though how such statistics could possibly be derived remains a complete mystery to me). So the internet makes it easier for society's rapidly increasing percentage of criminals to steal with less risk of suffering any consequences for their crimes than at any previous time in history. No big deal in societies that comprise of similarly criminally inclined individuals - why should they object to being stolen from?
But the results of encouraging (if only by omission) children to steal anything they can get their hands on via the internet has serious repercussions as is evidenced in this article referring to recent incident in the USA:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/060311-so-why-are-senior-us.html?page=2
I don't know why the US government would allow their employees to use a commercial email service and the article touches on some of the possible reasons. But the fact that some scammer from another country was able to do so is a cause for concern to anyone. Movies like "the girl with the dragon tattoo" exaggerate (or maybe not?) how easy it is for people who want to hack into other people's computers can easily do so and encourage the criminally minded (quite possibly sleeping in a bedroom in your house) to continue to blur the lines between honest and dishonest behaviour to a point where the only criterion becomes "If I can't get caught then why not steal from other people?"
Apart from the loss of money to corporations and individuals the fact that the same techniques can compromise governments makes for a far grimmer view of hacking/scamming generally. Entering into criminal activities at a very young age and having a consequence free criminal apprenticeship is no longer just a "what harm does it really do" activity - it clearly does a great deal of harm already and the depth and breadth of harm done in the future will, obviously be far, far greater. Having our Sunday newspaper stolen is a minor breakfast inconvenience - having my personal bank account looted is another thing altogether. The one inevitably follows the other.
Your child stealing a movie/TV Episode with you doing nothing about it, our Sunday paper being stolen is not a petty theft - it is the beginning of the end of civilisation.
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