USPS text scammers duped his wife, so he hacked their operation

Can you be prosecuted for hacking cybercriminals back? Because I am pretty certain that you, if you had something stolen from you, are not actually allowed to break and enter the thief's house, take your stuff back and leave, and you're definitely not allowed to make a copy of keys for their locks while you're at it.

It's pretty grey, there's the computer abuse act or w/e. But it's quite selectively enforced.

I don't the US gov is gonna go after him for hacking a scam group AND he provided details to the authorities. Now, if he hacked them and used the stolen credit card details? Who knows.

> hacking a scam group AND he provided details to the authorities

So cyber-vigilantism is technically illegal but the authorities will tacitly pretend it is not, when it suits them fine, probably.

Are you proposing that every law on the books should be enforced every time anyone breaks it?

That sounds exactly like how I would want law enforcement to work.

some times its even endorsed like when the government just let Microsoft take control of the No-IP's domains a few years back because. despite the fact Microsoft didn't have any standing and just decided they were internet sheriff. I was a customer of No-ip at the time had Microsoft just black-holed the routing of everyone myself included because some users were using their dynamic dns service for malicious purposes

Well, it's a matter of personal taste. I'd prefer actual "equality before the law" myself.

I say no, but I'd also prefer laws that are more written for more specific application. If a human can make the call that "it's not right to apply this law here; doing so would lead to more lawlessness," so can a penal code. And giving much discretion to the humans enforcing law leads, more often, to undesirable outcomes (eg. "by random chance wink wink, this law only seems to get enforced against Black people").

Like China or Russia? C’mon man. We’re better than that. At least that’s what we advertise.

It's almost as if the proliferation of stories like "the district prosecutor found no grounds to open a hit-and-run and DUI case against the young man who just so happens to be the son of the local MP/mogul" makes people disappointed in their government, law-enforcement agencies, and the political system in general.

If not, then why do those laws exist? Either we're ok with those sorts of actions, and we should repeal the laws, or we're not, and we should enforce them, equally and universally. Anything less leads to biased enforcement.

Like a fascist state?

Yes.

If you have a problem with that, maybe it shouldn't be on the books.

Sure, I'd be all for removing a huge chunk of laws that exist today. In the meantime I don't think anyone actually wants every law to be enforced every time it is broken. Our legal system would grind to a halt.

Who are they going to call, the cops?

(This is also why criminals tend to seek illegal firearms; self-defense from other criminals is a more salient issue than it is for the average citizen for this reason.)

As far as selective enforcement goes, it's on the better side. Of course it would be better if law enforcement was actually the ones enforcing the rules.

> Our legal system would grind to a halt.

Because it isn't a system so much as a kafka-esque nightmare.