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Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

Where do we end up? Anyone who sells a knife is charged for any murder committed with that brand of knife. Does that mean anyone buying a knife has to sign a form releasing the company from legal issues that may arise?

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Most knives are not intended to harm or kill, they just happen to be used for that case sometimes; you can make the same argument for a large stick wielded by someone with the intent to kill. Handguns however have one purpose: to kill someone (aside: saying "but wait they can be used in gun ranges" kinda proves that point). They were explicitly produced for this purpose. Ideally gun manufacturers would be held accountable for their production; unfortunately they are not, and gun companies just throw up their hands and say "well this gun was legally sold so I can't help you". Likewise, if you produce and sell a piece of software whose main goal is to infiltrate personal devices, especially in a targeted manner, then you are ideally liable for outcomes regardless of who applies your software. NSO is giving the exact same response as those gun companies.

NSO would argue that the software in question is only intended for use against terrorists and criminals. Gun companies argue that they’re not designed to take human life. Who draws the line on when a company is lying about the intended purpose of products? You?

Unfortunately those that draw that line in reality are the same people who want encryption banned for consumers but not government agencies because it prevents the sharing of child pornography and terrorism make that decision. Are they right? Is that the only argument that matters?

I would argue that a more apt comparison is to selling assassinations, rather than guns. While most laws prohibit that, governments and powerful entities engage in that. Anyway, this comparison makes no sense from many different perspectives.

> Where do we end up? Anyone who sells a knife is charged for any murder committed with that brand of knife.

We could split the difference and just assign liability for the ones done by serial murderers and people who show up asking for knives that are good for murdering. Knowing that your product is going to be used for some purpose and providing it anyway makes you an accomplice.

A better example would be a specially designed knife for bringing undetected onto an airplane.

A knife has plenty of valid uses beyond being able to kill someone. Malware doesn’t.

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