I guess with house locks, it's a plain distinction between breaking into a lock and breaking into a house. With cryptography, I imagine that distinction is really problematic?
Though I'm aware in Assange's case they do have proof of intent, but I wonder if it sets bad precedent, or is a case where they just dug up some law which is practically never really enforced?
He took specific steps (cracking a hash) with the clear intent of helping break into a government owned computer system.
I'm not sure what the gray area is supposed to be here.
If I teach you lock picking skills as a fun hobby, that's clearly okay.
If I teach you lock picking skills knowing you aspire to be a house robber, that is grayish legally and wrong ethically.
But if I break into a specific bank vault for you to help you steal stuff, and we talked about stealing the stuff before I helped you, then I'm clearly involved in a criminal conspiracy.
Assange committed a crime, and if he played the same role in helping to empty your bank account you'd want these laws to exist.
The ethical question here is about whether that crime was ethically jusified. I.e., it's about civil disobedience, not about whether blatant conspiracy should be legal.
How do you know the Administrator account wouldn't have yielded more documents compared to a user account?
Regardless, imagine two independent people trying to murder someone. The first shoots a fatal bullet and the victim is about to imminently die, even if the best medical aid were to be immediately provided. Then the second murderer comes on the scene, does not realize that the victim is fatally wounded, and shoots another bullet, instantly killing him.
Both these people would be fully responsible for the murder, not just attempted murder. Arguments from them saying "no, the other killed him, I did not", do not fly in court.
I would say a more accurate distinction is breaking into someone's home vs trying to break into a military base. In the first case you're likely to get arrested, in the second they'll probably shoot first and ask questions later
Picking someone else's door lock is legal if they ask you to.
Picking someone else's lock, if it's not actually in a door and isn't protecting anything, is not illegal, even if they don't ask you to or give permission. You're just picking up a lock and fiddling with it, there's no trespass.
Picking someone else's door lock to burgle their home is illegal.
Handing someone a lockpick so that they can burgle a home for you is illegal.
It's like as if Manning copied the lock at the military base and Assange agreed to see if he can figure out how to pick the copy, but failed (or never even tried, we don't know).
