4 ms·

This situation is much more akin to a fire rapidly spreading through a village at night. I would go outside and start hollering in the hopes of saving anyone.

saagarjha 9y ago
A better analogy is that there's a fire somewhere in your village, but it's mostly contained (it's not spreading, because other people don't know about it yet). By hollering about it, you've made it possible for anyone to go to the fire, light a torch with it, and burn down the village. Instead, you could call up the fire department and they could put it out–and then you could tell everyone about it.
- 5ilv3r 9y ago
  You are comparing an arsonist to a fire department.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    Uhh, no. How are you getting that impression? I'm simply saying that arsonists exist, and it's probably a good idea to make it harder for them to burn things down than to publicly advertise a way for them to do it.
    - 5ilv3r 9y ago
      Do you live in some horrible place where your neighbors will throw gas on your burning house unless you can quickly and quietly get the fire department there first, to put out the fire that the FIRE DEPARTMENT started? Dude. That was your example.
      - saagarjha 9y ago
        It's an analogy (and it's not mine, mind you; I simply tried to make it more accurate)–don't take it too literally. Hacking is a thing that exists. By reporting this publicly it's become a lot easier to hack people.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  > you've made it possible for anyone to go to the fire, light a torch with it And at the same time provided everyone with a simple, free, and perfect way to fireproof his/her house. You could wait for the fire department, which may take hours to get there, and hope that no malicious party down the street saw the fire, or you can do this. It turns out that both are quite reasonable reactions in this scenario, and that the latter is much more obvious to the layman. There is no good reason to get angry at the layman for taking a course you don't prefer.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    > And at the same time provided everyone with a simple, free, and perfect way to fireproof his/her house. The issue here is that it isn't perfect in the long run (having a root account with a password is worse than not having one) and many people will not be adopting it since they're not in the know. Of course, it is always possible people have been already exploiting this, but most likely it is at most a small number of people who know about it. Now every script kiddie in the world can and will go around trying to hack anyone who isn't well-informed enough to know how to protect themselves.

saagarjha 9y ago

A better analogy is that there's a fire somewhere in your village, but it's mostly contained (it's not spreading, because other people don't know about it yet). By hollering about it, you've made it possible for anyone to go to the fire, light a torch with it, and burn down the village. Instead, you could call up the fire department and they could put it out–and then you could tell everyone about it.

5ilv3r 9y ago
You are comparing an arsonist to a fire department.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Uhh, no. How are you getting that impression? I'm simply saying that arsonists exist, and it's probably a good idea to make it harder for them to burn things down than to publicly advertise a way for them to do it.
  - 5ilv3r 9y ago
    Do you live in some horrible place where your neighbors will throw gas on your burning house unless you can quickly and quietly get the fire department there first, to put out the fire that the FIRE DEPARTMENT started? Dude. That was your example.
    - saagarjha 9y ago
      It's an analogy (and it's not mine, mind you; I simply tried to make it more accurate)–don't take it too literally. Hacking is a thing that exists. By reporting this publicly it's become a lot easier to hack people.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
> you've made it possible for anyone to go to the fire, light a torch with it And at the same time provided everyone with a simple, free, and perfect way to fireproof his/her house. You could wait for the fire department, which may take hours to get there, and hope that no malicious party down the street saw the fire, or you can do this. It turns out that both are quite reasonable reactions in this scenario, and that the latter is much more obvious to the layman. There is no good reason to get angry at the layman for taking a course you don't prefer.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > And at the same time provided everyone with a simple, free, and perfect way to fireproof his/her house. The issue here is that it isn't perfect in the long run (having a root account with a password is worse than not having one) and many people will not be adopting it since they're not in the know. Of course, it is always possible people have been already exploiting this, but most likely it is at most a small number of people who know about it. Now every script kiddie in the world can and will go around trying to hack anyone who isn't well-informed enough to know how to protect themselves.