by Patrick Appel
Brendan Koerner profiles Alfred Anaya, who created hi-tech “traps,” hidden compartments in cars. Making traps, in and of itself, is not illegal, but Anaya is serving a more than 24 year sentence because some of his clients used his traps to transport drugs:
A common hacker refrain is that technology is always morally neutral. The culture’s libertarian ethos holds that creators shouldn’t be faulted if someone uses their gadget or hunk of code to cause harm; the people who build things are under no obligation to meddle in the affairs of the adults who consume their wares.
But Alfred Anaya’s case makes clear that the government rejects that permissive worldview. The technically savvy are on notice that they must be very careful about whom they deal with, since calculated ignorance of illegal activity is not an acceptable excuse. But at what point does a failure to be nosy edge into criminal conduct? In light of what happened to Anaya, that question is nearly impossible to answer.
The Dish 