a "hack" is like art. when is it art when is it garbage? when the author says so.

the word hack has had so many interpretations ...

i don't read to much of it into it.

a hack to me is a temporary not-so-elegant solution to a problem. technically i don't really see a problem.. but since it's a a personal thing i shall not contest your definitions.

and i don't see how "hacking html" is illegal. perhaps you could enlighten me on that.
scenario 1: i click on a link, load a page, an <embed> tag is parsed and a media player loaded. file is downloaded from LinkA to "Temporary Internet Files" only to be played by the media player.
scenario 2: i retrieve url of the file to be downloaded in scenario 1 (the same LinkA), download it by inputting its address into the address bar of my browser.
there's no check to see if you paid for anything or whatsoever, and in both cases you download the file the same way. the only way to tell the difference is probably the referer url. so is the US court going to rule, "you access LinkA from http://www.haha.com/ instead of http://www.haha.com/haha/. For that, I'm going to give you 2 to the power of 6 years of jail time."?

I'm pretty sure, it's the "intent" factor, that would makes it illegal. Law is a funny thing. you can do the exact
same thing twice. But with different intentions. for example when you drive your car into a wall
if you ment to destroy the building other laws aply than when it was an accident.

Personally I doubt this practice is "illegal enough" to land you in prison. However I personally read over
those kind of disclamers. There good for the dramatic effect, but that's about it.

Maybe we should hold a: "the cool hack's thread". and see what we can come up with
In the sence of using software/services in a clever way, that they might not be intended to have been;
Just a collection of little insights.

sounds good
i'll try to brainstorm for some stuff.
but for now it's bedtime

hmm. Too much to think about. For now, I'll jut log on as another user and hope that if the sh!t hits the fan, he takes the hat. Chers.

C:\ format C

sorry wrong thread

Don't you know that when you open command prompt and type

format C: -dance

it will not format your hard disk but instead a hot girl will pop out and dance on your desktop?