Ask HN: When did Stack Overflow become Attorney Overflow?

1 point

16 years ago

I recently asked a question on Stack Overflow about pulling a page from one website to another and how to work around cross-site-scripting limitations etc.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2645114/embed-external-website-inside-a-page

The first two (almost immediate) responses were to point out that what I wanted to do might be illegal, phishing or otherwise naughty.

Now I understand that we all want to help each other out by pointing out legal pitfalls that might derail some large endeavor however at this stage of my project I am simply experimenting and seeking technical programming guidance or ideas from a community of programmers; when the time comes to take this "out of the lab" I'll be seeking legal consult (and probably from lawyers, not programmers).

This is reflects a larger trend in general science where the law (and at times, morality) interfere with progress and I found it discouraging to see that this has trickled down all the way to computer science.

Is there anywhere to discuss programming in the context of programming without being interrupted by these sermons?

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