Yes, they might look the same,but if your in prison for fraud or computer crime you shouldn’t get access to begin with. If they aren’t in there for that, why should they be any more suspect than the rest of us?
Nobody on a network computer should be allowed access to DOS. You can’t do this at most public libraries (without significant hacking skills) and if you did, it wouldn’t look at all like netscape.Hence it would be obvious to the guard that they needed to revoke your access.
You could learn the deltree bit from your geek friends.
As for the deltree command itself, I got to it by pressing Start, Run and then typing it in. I could have wiped my entire hard drive. I could have done that numerous times to any computer I’ve ever seen, with the exception of some hard-core CS friends of mine.
“Nobody on a network computer should be allowed access to DOS.”
You don’t need DOS to do a deltree. That said, I think the rest of your argument is pretty much irrelevant.
BTW, there’s some coding you could learn from a manual to show the entire folder system for any given hard drive (and/or slave drive, I believe). Doesn’t take much to do this, and you’d be surprised how many people know how to do it. And these are not people who’d be committing computer fraud etc.
All of this stuff has been thought out by folks more versed in hacking than we. I’m not going to argue every point about what people can and can’t do. But if it can be easily done than I think it can be easily prevented.
Yeah, there’s no perfect lock, every protection can be surmounted with enough effort, but that doesn’t stop us from building prisons does it?
It would be significantly harder for a prisoner with limited access to do harm to people through the internet than it would be for the rest of us. And if they haven’t been convicted of fraud or computer related crime, why are they suspects for these crimes?
Weight lifting is actually a fairly trivial issue in my opinion. (Our main concern is making sure the actual weight lifting equipment isn’t used as a weapon.) In our main yard we have over three hundred inmates being watched by three or four officers. If the inmates decide to cause a serious problem, it’s really not going to matter if some of them are “pumped”. By the same token, I’ve seen an inmate who looks like the Incredible Hulk back down from a five foot tall female officer because he recognized the trouble he would be in if he hadn’t. In prison, 95% of the intimidation is conducted on a psychological level. While outnumbered, we run the prisons because we work together and the inmates don’t.
As I’ve mentioned before, inmates have access to the mail and telephones. And they regularly misuse these to do things they shouldn’t. Internet access would make it far easier for them to do these things and far more difficult for us to prevent them. It may be true that unfamiliarity with the internet may someday handicap their employment opportunities. But many jobs require driving; does it therefore follow that we should let inmates use cars to keep their driving skills fresh? We don’t deprive the inmates just to be unpleasant; we do it because we feel there is a real risk to the prison or to society.
As for the intelligence of criminals, I feel it can’t be judged by prisoners. Remember, prisoners represent the criminals who were caught and convicted, ie the ones who failed at their chosen profession.
I pointed out that they would gain access by using another inmate.They would also use their knowledge as a tradeable asset, everything in jail has a value.
A person may have computor expertise and be in prison for a completely unrelated offence, there is no way of knowing which inmates have the skills and which do not.Sometimes inmates have been known to mislead staff about their backgrounds.
All inmates have the potential for changing their MO and will do so if it is to their advantage.You can regard inmates as people who will do whatever it takes because there will always be one that will.
I have seen inmates go out and change offences from burglary to car crime as their main activity simply because they are aware that if caught with a string of similar offences they will be in line for a much longer term.When they come back, as the accept they will, they are only too happy to point out that they only got the minimum first time jail for their new MO.
Inmates try to fiddle on phone cards, they try to fiddle mail order, they will steal from the kitchens, from staff from visitors such as outside probation workers, they will try to steal when on outside hospital visits from the medical staff,they will steal steal from each other they will try to get anything to which they are not entitled such as extra gym or bedclothes, mobile phones the list is endless.
When they are due to be released they will try to inflate their claims on the release grants.
And it is suggested that they have access to a system that has been vulnerable to fraud and malicious damage ?
Oh yes m’dear lets have some of that!
I hear so much about the “great potential” for harm the internet. presents What exactly are these prisoners going to do?
They can use the internet to pass on infromation without proper controls.
They can find out where staff live.
They can find out personal information about whom they choose and use that information to suit themselves.
They can damage other systems for the hell of it, don’t underestimate what some of these inmates call entertainment
They can distribute viruses.
There have been several frauds on phone companies where bills have been altered.
There have been several attempts to flood and bring down internet trading companies in attempts to gain customer information.
Put it another way, the internet is a way to access and distribute any sort of information, how much is the right infromation worth ?
Ok, so if I commit a crime, I’m suddenly a suspect without due cause for any other crime?
“We don’t have a description on the murderer yet, but there’s this guy that knocked over a liquor store once, lets go arrest him.”
The main reason controls are normally hard to place on the internet is because people who have no supervision, plenty of time, and expertise have dedicated serious time and effort into circumventing them. Someone who gets to check out the net a few hours a week in a supervised facility and strict electronic controls wouldn’t qualify to me.
Actually when some offences are comitted the police will go round picking up likely candidates.Think of most of the serial killer/rapist cases. Almost any reason will be used to question people, in fact you do not even need to have been an offender of any sort at all .
So some of those people who have invested all that time and expertise whilst unsupervised, and are now in jail as a result, are not going to continue ?
Once somebody has managed to find ways of exploiting the security loopholes it is easier for them to find more and it is easier for them to direct others to do the same.
There are individuals who have proven, many times , that they have no regard for the law, breaking yet another is hardly a great moral obstacle.
Example of the sort of information you would likely not want anyone to have let alone a convicted person - how about an itemised phone bill, who you called and when.
I would like to know what benefit the prisoner would gain that could not be attained in some other, more secure, way.