Schneier on Security

Curious • July 14, 2016 4:57 AM

@Jordan

“Isn’t this straightforwardly trespassing?”
(About someone having second hand access to something, as I understand it.)

Trespassing as an idea, would be (ought to be) different than the idea of something being deemed criminal, because they would be two different aspects I think to a subject like “trespassing”. One aspect pertain to “behavior” (trespassing as an idea within a “legal” framework, more categorical and less objective, conceptual and non referential), and the other to the evident action (trespassing as a phenomena in the world, more objective, references back to real things).

There is also the subjective/objective dichotomy I guess (thought of as being mutually exclusive things): you yourself might have an opinion about some particular set of circumstances pertaining to an instance of trespassing (more idiotic), and culture/institutions might have a different opinion (more authoritative).

So, I think the general idea of “trespassing” would necessarily have to be different than the idea of “punishable crime”, and any third layer to this, with say an idea of treating any case for trespassing as being subject to sanctions (anything really) would probably just be something pragmatic in order to try work within a legal framework (or abuse it), and (with a modest amount of cynicism) not be something based on a principal understanding, as if “trespassing” as such was an observable “thing” in the real world.

I also think that ‘trespassing’ could easily become a word used for things one normally wouldn’t use the “trespassing” for, like resting ones hand on someone’s else’s body part.

The word ‘trespassing is, not so much a fact of reality, as functioning as an accusation I think. Alternatively, ‘trespassing’ can take on a metaphorical meaning by which “trespassing” becomes a negatively charged word that works with relying on conceptual metaphors (simply pretending something being wrong, illegal, or criminal), in which one associate the word trespassing to something criminal or otherwise something deemed a bad and/or wrongful thing.

All in all, this in turn makes me think of ‘logocentrism’, something I haven’t really read directly about until now, but I suspect it might offer anyone an alternate explanation to the meaning of words in language, with ‘words’ being nothing but ‘names’ that are used habitually or by conveniance.

I think ‘trespassing’ is as meaningful (or meaningless) of a word as the word ‘privacy’. The words would be important in various ways, and it sort of depends on BOTH ones understanding of life/reality in general AND the arguments in which such words are used, but never one or the other.

Yet, it is not so much that the meaning of things are strictly relativistic to peoples point of view (their arguments), but that meaning about things can be said to come about from culture (broadly speaking), and also, that institutionalized thinking probably get away with being authoritative, because a lot of people simply are employed in various ways to enforce the practices of institutionalized authorities.

Curious • July 17, 2016 4:21 AM

I am not sure if JBu92 perhaps misspelled anything or not, though I am not convinced that the phrase “with intent to defraud” is necessarily very meaningful, because “with intent to defraud” seems to rely on two elements of what I like to call ‘prescriptive’ words: “intent” and “defraud” (think something authoritative, and, as if working only within a legal framework).

This particular phrase as a whole sounds more like an accusation than anything else. The phrase could have been referencing back to ‘an intent’ (instead of just ‘intent’), but it doesn’t.

One problem is that “defraud” seem like being a conceptual idea and not a reference to something real, probably being a reference of sorts to the idea of like someone willfully selecting and targeting someone else in a way that is thought of as being fraudulent behavior (whatever entails “fraud”). So I am inclined to think that ‘defraud’ here probably doesn’t refer to a real event, but is instead accusatory, as if being an element to something criminal where things are deemed as being worse if a crime has been been premeditated, as if planned.

The other problem I have with this, is that “with intent to defraud” seem something like a tautological statement to me, because of how both the meaning of ‘intent’ and ‘defraud’ ends up being similar, obviously referring to an understanding of some-one’s intent.

I think such a phrase in this exact form is unfortunate, because I can only imagine two uses in a strictly meaningful way: one being a generalized problem, in which the crudeness of the statement wouldn’t work in a legal framework (because it wouldn’t be entirely clear what the accusation is, is it about fraud or premeditation or both?), or, as a specific statement in a legal framework, that functions like an accusation against somebody, not only about having planned fraud (but not quite), but also for about having committed fraud (but perhaps not quite).

If criminalizing intent, generally speaking, I suspect a prosecution could accuse someone based on evidence of fraudulent behavior (something authoritative, and not necessarily reflecting reality if being imaginative) and then try to criminalize someones expressed or suspected intent, even if something is thought as merely being planned, but not acted on, OR, a prosecution could accuse someone of having an intent to commit a crime, maybe based on an imaginative understanding of someone else’s expressed intent.

The phrase “with intent to defraud” sounds as dubious to me as something else I commented on previously on this blog: the idea/notion of “having discretion”. Both being about intent and choice, but not really being about anything. I haven’t checked and I wonder if maybe Fbi Comey ever used the phrase “with intent to defraud” at any time vs Hillary Clinton, maybe in a negative and apologetic way, like “not with intent to defraud”? I can at least imagine that by clouding an accusation this way, one can easily refute it once it becomes as self reflexive question regarding someones else morals and goodwill (“Is Hillary Clinton just a criminal? Nah”), because it then is not about what is possible, or evident, but more about wishful thinking again.

Curious • July 17, 2016 6:29 AM

@r

“I feel what you’re saying I think, but I don’t think it applies in this case.”
I don’t know what that means, and I don’t understand what the point of that might be.

The problem with ‘words’, is that they are often not just work like words, but also work like names, with names being this thing in our reality that makes ideas great, either for remembering them, or for understanding them (for better and for worse) disregarding any specific context. That is why I often find language problematic, because the use of language stir up emotion in people and whenever one have to guess at what something means, it would be unfortunate if one is all too happy extrapolating meaning to suit your own points of view.

“Specifically, “intent to defraud” is generally a financial term (…)”
I also don’t know what this means. The words “a financial term” is surely already something generalized, so I find no point in what you wrote here, and so I don’t understand what you mean even when you say “the way I understand it”.

“This is an instance of “access fraud” “with the intent to defraud” by stealing said companies clients.”
I think insofar as one generalize to make a problem about something, you can do no wrong here alluding to things that otherwise isn’t explicitly pointed out, though it leads to another problem of not really understanding what you might have meant when being unclear about things.

“It is most definately access fraud, with a major financial motivation.”
Says who? You? As if definitely?

I find it overly difficult following your line of reasoning here.