
B&N Removes Magazine From Nook Store Due To Feature Article On 'Hacking' - mikecane
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120503/13323818766/bn-removes-magazine-nook-store-due-to-feature-article-hacking.shtml
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guywithabike
Curious. I always used to get my 2600 from their shelves, and they were always
prominently displayed.

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GBond
Came here to say the same as well.

My guess? The same management that "knee-jerk reaction" bans a mag just
because it has the word HACK in bold large text doesn't bother to figure out
the actual contents of 2600.

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nextparadigms
You'd think a book store's manager wouldn't judge a book by its cover.

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libria
Here is the cover in question:
<http://www.linuxformat.com/files/lxf_covers/154-big.jpg>.

> _Learn to Hack, Attack servers >> Crack passwords >> Exploit services >>
> Beat encryption >> Everything you need to be evil_

Not sure if that warrants pulling from shelves, but it explicitly endorses
illegal activity. Everything up until the last phrase could be sold as
legitimate penetration testing. I can easily see their lawyers getting
twitchy.

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jcoder
Um, except that's "Everything you need to be evil*". The asterisk clearly
references this: "for self reference only. Don't break the law!"

(EDIT: removed snark)

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libria
I do appreciate the correction and detail, since I honestly can't make it out
on my screen.

edit: redaction

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jcoder
Fair enough, apologies for the snarky attack. The caveat is hard to make out,
though the asterisk is quite obvious.

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scott_s
It wasn't to me - I thought it was another phrase divider.

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cantankerous
This article goes out to say that the term "Hack" is increasingly less
commonly used to refer to malicious users. While that might be true in tech
circles, I'm skeptical that a significantly larger group of people off the
street would respond positively if I asked them what the term "hack" meant.
I'm not saying Hacking is bad, I think the term has been somewhat hijacked,
sure. But, let's be realistic, I think it's generally a negative term to most
people and will probably stay that way into the indefinite future.

~~~
gnu8
The negative meaning should not be accepted or acknowledged. When something is
incorrect it's incorrect, no matter how many people believe it.

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cantankerous
It's a neologism...a lingual bookmark for a concept in the popular
consciousness. I'm not sure that you can just tell people they're "wrong" for
using it. They'll just tell you you're wrong for not using it.

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sehugg
The article on cursory glance seems to be no more than a brief tutorial on
Metasploit, books about which are available for purchase on B&N.com.

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erickhill
Censorship is censorship. It never works, and in this particular case sounds
incredibly ignorant.

Some day perhaps there will be a deep-catalog "open source e-bookstore" that
is device agnostic so the gatekeepers are bypassed altogether. Hm...

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antidoh
Sign me up.

Oh, wait, they have that now, in the form of torrent sites. I think their
prospectus would have some statement of existential risk.

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snowwrestler
Then presumably they'll also be removing books like this one?

[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/web-security-testing-
cookboo...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/web-security-testing-cookbook-
brian-hope/1100157489)

~~~
darksaga
I had the same reaction when I saw the issue with the title, "How to Beat the
CIA - Keep Everybody Out with our Ultimate Privacy Guide."

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coolgeek
Original source:

[http://tuxradar.com/content/learn-hack-was-pulled-barnes-
and...](http://tuxradar.com/content/learn-hack-was-pulled-barnes-and-noble)

Techdirt is the third-hand source here.

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zitterbewegung
This is probably the best thing that could happen to this magazine though.
Publicity from all these news sources.

