The Criminal Command Line
EFF has a story on the seizure of personal property of a BC student (and subsequent quashing of the search warrant) suspected of computer crimes (this story has also been covered by Bruce Schneier). One strong “reason” that investigators and complaining witnesses suspected him: because his computer displayed “…a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.” The specific incident arose from personal conflict, but the excuses used by the authorities to seize property were somewhat thin.
Because the student used what is arguably an expert’s tool, to the complaining witness (who was himself a computer science student) and possibly the investigating officers, that indicator of expertise must mean that the accused student was up to no good. Expertise as an indicator of malicious intent? Seriously?
I view this as a demonstration of Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The common citizen (and I include peace officers, barristers, and magistrates in this designation — and, sadly, a lot of CS majors) has no experience with the command line: its very presence, spare and lean, fills them with an instant dread of the unknown because it supplies a reminder of a conversation that they just cannot participate in.
No hints, clues, or cues as to what to do next surround the bare prompt (even those prompts that do convey information convey specialized information such as a directory or host name). The prompt sits there, patiently waiting for the user to speak magic incantations. In response, it either says nothing or spits back dense reams of text — no images, and little or no markup. Ordinary people find themselves completely out of their depth in this situation. Anyone capable of manipulating this environment must have some mysterious knowledge and power. And people find mysterious power easy to fear.
[me@host ~]$ man fear
No manual entry for fear
[me@host ~]$
