[sellandb]

I disagree, I have no expectation that my personal friends will be taking measures to ensure my privacy, I have not paid them money and signed off on a TOS that says they will take measures to protect my personal information. So if someone broke into their house and stole my information it would certainly be unfortunate, but I would not have expected them to be keeping this information encrypted or secured in any significant way.

However, those are not my expectations with a company. I paid Sony for a PS3 and by extension to use PSN and I signed their TOS with the understanding that they would protect my personal information. The same goes for the information that I give my bank, or any other business that I provide my personal information too.

The analogy doesn't break down because of the illegality of the act, there is little doubt that both breaking into your house and breaking into your server are both illegal. Instead the analogy breaks down because I have almost no expectation that my friends will take significant steps to protect my personal data, but I do have expect (and in most cases I have a written promise in the TOS) that the companies I provide my information to will protect it.

[phuff]

I see what you're saying here. The notion that this would be more analagous to a corporate office break-in makes more sense, but it still seems like a poor argument for why what LulzSec is doing, though seemingly negative, is actually beneficial.

I mean, if we were talking about LulzSec exploiting the locks on the corporate office doors or socially engineering their way past security to get at physical files, scanning them and then posting them on the internet, I don't think many people would say that what LulzSec is doing is for the good of humankind, you know?