It's probably legal, even though it's not as intended. If you need 50 shell companies you are clearly abusing some loopholes, which I morally/ethically consider wrong. But that's something society has to fix ...
Finding loopholes seems like it's perfectly aligned with the hacker ethos. We cheer when we read about the guy who figured out how to always win at Press Your Luck, the guy who gamed the lotto system to greatly increase his odds, the guy who bought large quantities of pudding and got enough free air miles to last the rest of his life. I wouldn't be surprised if the first lawyers who figured out these loopholes got the same hacker high from finding the cracks in the system. Of course, for the first 3 examples, the loopholes were closed after those people exploited it. Now if the governments don't close these well-known loopholes, isn't it equivalent to implicitly condoning them?
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d say the hacker ethos would be to, yes, exploit that loophole but also publicize the dickens out of it so it gets fixed and refactored into a more rational system that obviates that whole class of errors.
Hacker Ethos is mot to find the bug in the bank's system and transfer a billion dollar, but to find the issue and report it and get it fixed. The hacker Ethos is to improve things.
