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From: encore!pinocchio!bzs@talcott.harvard.edu (Barry Shein)
To: phage
X-To: tower@bu-it.BU.EDU, karl@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu, lear@NET.BIO.NET, phage
Subject: Disassembled virus?
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 88 14:13:15 est
X-Date: Wed 14:13:15 09/11/1988 EST


>How about N years of community service finding and fixing security
>holes in BSD and SysV Unix?
>
>enjoy -len

I do have some problems with the whole "community service" thing, as
appealing as it is on the surface. It presumes a completely
uncorruptable legal system.

In many districts, back in the days when labor gangs were considered
reasonable punishment, a common thing to do just before embarking on a
construction project was to pick up everyone who looked at you crooked
on "vagrancy" or whatever you could drum up as a charge and sentence
them to (lessee, how long will that construction contract take to
finish....) Sure saved some counties a lot of money!

That's why such programs were made illegal although it does seem to be
creeping through the backdoor under the guise of the oh so
nice-sounding "community service", who could be against "community
service"?!

Labor is money, ideas like this make prisoners a profitable commodity
which is quite a temptation for corruption. Yes, it's a quandary, but
a free and just society always is.

I say "professional banishment", at least for some specified period
(assuming a conviction, of course, and as judged by a jury of peers
etc.)

	-Barry Shein, ||Encore||