4 ms·

I have seen this discussion evolve from the early 90's from overwhelmingly freedom loving, rational and logical to now scaremongering, feeble justifications and

I have seen this discussion evolve from the early 90's from overwhelmingly freedom loving, rational and logical to now scaremongering, feeble justifications and often just self importance. Isn't it time to have something like the Hippocratic Oath that commits developers to some ethical standards and not engage in activities that may have negative consequences for humanity in general. The problem with Snowden is not what he has done but what thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of others have not. And the way the freedom loving media, the EU and the US has treated him apart from being shameful doesn't help potential whistle blowers. Given what we now know about the level of sophistication and ever growing number programs at play there needs to be more activism against the groups and individuals who enable this. And also more oversight of the level of involvement of security agencies and other vested interests in open source.

vox_mollis 11y ago
Developer ethics are definitely an issue. But if you want to really see evil, take a look at the infosec community. "White Hat" is effectively equivalent to government contractor now. Infosec people readily sell 0days to governments or fronts for governments without hesitation. They unquestioningly collaborate with law enforcement on victimless crime cases, so long as the money is good. Yes, this is a gross generalization. But any doubts of this generalization can easily be remedied by attending RSA or BlackHat and talking to the other attendees. CCC and Defcon may be a slight step up, but not by much. In any other community this wouldn't be all that disgusting, except the fundamental roots of the community are ostensibly in creatively and intelligently circumventing authority - and now they're rarely more than collaborators.
- pdkl95 11y ago
  > attending RSA Colbert, during his talk[1] at RSA: If you're attending this conference, it is your business to prevent security breaches, and that means learning enough about hacks, exploits, and leaks to scare your clients into hiring you again next year. [very subdued "ha-ha-only-serious" laughter] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gGtVScrQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gGtVScrQo
- rsync 11y ago
  ""White Hat" is effectively equivalent to government contractor now. " ... so the el8 guys were right all along ?
arca_vorago 11y ago
The first place to start is for us to embrace GPL and shun BSD style licenses that allow tivoization. It's those kinds of licenses being abused and turned around on consumers that not only enabled the current state of things, but actively prevents us from fixing the current state of things. (sorry, that bug in your ps4 is there till we patch it, because you don't own your hardware and the software is closed. Or the firmware on your docsis 3.0 modem is out of date, but you can't have the firmware since only ISP's control that. Oh but your isp doesn't have the firmware for ityet.) RMS may be a bit eccentric, but he was and is right, I think he was just a man ahead of his time. (A/L)GPLv3 ftw.

vox_mollis 11y ago

Developer ethics are definitely an issue. But if you want to really see evil, take a look at the infosec community. "White Hat" is effectively equivalent to government contractor now. Infosec people readily sell 0days to governments or fronts for governments without hesitation. They unquestioningly collaborate with law enforcement on victimless crime cases, so long as the money is good. Yes, this is a gross generalization. But any doubts of this generalization can easily be remedied by attending RSA or BlackHat and talking to the other attendees. CCC and Defcon may be a slight step up, but not by much. In any other community this wouldn't be all that disgusting, except the fundamental roots of the community are ostensibly in creatively and intelligently circumventing authority - and now they're rarely more than collaborators.

pdkl95 11y ago
> attending RSA Colbert, during his talk[1] at RSA: If you're attending this conference, it is your business to prevent security breaches, and that means learning enough about hacks, exploits, and leaks to scare your clients into hiring you again next year. [very subdued "ha-ha-only-serious" laughter] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gGtVScrQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7gGtVScrQo
rsync 11y ago
""White Hat" is effectively equivalent to government contractor now. " ... so the el8 guys were right all along ?

arca_vorago 11y ago

The first place to start is for us to embrace GPL and shun BSD style licenses that allow tivoization. It's those kinds of licenses being abused and turned around on consumers that not only enabled the current state of things, but actively prevents us from fixing the current state of things. (sorry, that bug in your ps4 is there till we patch it, because you don't own your hardware and the software is closed. Or the firmware on your docsis 3.0 modem is out of date, but you can't have the firmware since only ISP's control that. Oh but your isp doesn't have the firmware for ityet.) RMS may be a bit eccentric, but he was and is right, I think he was just a man ahead of his time. (A/L)GPLv3 ftw.