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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

To me it feels like we owe Google a lot for what they are doing to find security vulnerabilities. Did companies do stuff like this before Google's Project Zero?

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We benefit a lot from Google doing this, for sure. Do we owe them a lot? For that to be true, it’d have to have an altruistic motive and for the value being delivered to be less than Google derives from the open-source community / security community in general.

I understand the value derived vs. provided, but I disagree about it having to be altruistic. Someone donating large amounts of money to charity just to write it off on their taxes isn’t doing so altruistically, but is still doing a lot of good. I’d say we still owe them gratitude - or at the very least, the people they’re helping.

> Someone donating large amounts of money to charity just to write it off on their taxes isn’t doing so altruistically

I mean, it's still altruistic because they're going to 'lose wealth' by donating. You're never going to earn back in tax write-offs as much as you spent by donating.

Sort of... most companies that fund this type of research do it for product development (IDS/IPS related stuff), or as vulnerability development (for sale as parts of exploit packs or use in engagements). This is a gross over generalization, but like everything else related to the disclosure and research field, there is a lot of history and drama involved.

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