[geoschmo]

Richard, I don't mean to speak for you of course, but the typical protrayal of these guys is that they are basically harmless, bored, too smart for their own good, or even good intentioned if misguided in their methods. They are treated as heros within their own sub-culture, and some of them acchieve a sort of Jesse James cult standing among the general population who quietly view them as striking a blow against the evil tyranny of Microsoft, or big business in general. Often when they are caught they are given cushy jobs working for the security industry figuring out how to stop the punks that took over after they left. It's a bunch of crap. Instead they should be derided for what they are, malicous, destructive, deviant punks. And when caught they should be locked up for a serious amount of time and when let out not allowed to touch another computer for the rest of their lives.

I lock my door, but if I had to change the lock every week or every month to keep the punks form coming in my house I'd be pretty pissed off about it. I might decide to give up on the lock alltogether and sit inside the door with a gun instead.