Hacker News Reader

Comment by tosti | Hacker News Reader

More like, if you pay a fee to use a service, you can find the bombs already hidden somewhere in your premises.

And? They didn't put the bombs on your premises. Before "the service", you had bombs you didn't know about; after, you get to know about them.

But the service also tells criminals and adversaries about the bomb locations.

And? So do a variety of other services. Was it your impression that the criminals and adversaries were behind the 8 ball on this?

AI is reviving debates about vulnerability research that we thought we killed off in the 1990s.

Perhaps the argument isn't about the ethics of security research, but rather the divide between those who can afford non-free software licenses and those who ethically or circumstancially can't.

You'd see the same thing in 1990s full-disclosure debates, where people trying to create a social/cultural argument against vulnerability research would throw this kind of stuff against the wall just to see what would stick. It's either good to know about vulnerabilities in the code you rely on or it isn't.

Yes, of course. It's a bloody shame some of those tools are inaccessible to the poor, the not poor but f* your stupid payment system that doesn't connect to my bank, the software freedom enthousiasts, possibly others.

For myself, software freedom isn't just an ethical issue but also a practical neccesity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com