5 ms·

If you aren't a doctor and you start poisoning your friend with cancer's food does it really count as chemotherapy?

TeMPOraL 9y ago
I think the analogy is to the entire Internet being a single body, and chemotherapy being a nasty thing done to it that damages it, but destroys even more damaging things in the process.
rdiddly 9y ago
This is a question of credentials only. Which I don't mean to sound like I'm dismissing it at all - It's actually the whole reason this guy's effort got stranded. Chemotherapy is essentially controlled killing, to mitigate or prevent uncontrolled killing. Just like (as someone said elsewhere in this thread) controlled burning is done to mitigate or prevent uncontrolled burning. And here we have controlled hacking to mitigate uncontrolled hacking. Society doesn't support anybody killing, burning, or hacking, unless there's a way to know and recognize, that the person knows what they're doing. Which (the knowing and the recognizing) is a credentialing problem. It's the only difference between (doctors, police, firefighters, cybersecurity experts) and (quacks, vigilantes, arsonists and some-unknown-hacker), respectively. A guy I don't recognize as a surgeon, is just a masked man coming at me with a knife, even if he actually is a surgeon. If your intentions are good, you should take the trouble to get some kind of credentials, which can take many forms. (If your intentions are not-so-good then it makes a lot more sense to bypass that, but also for the public to put you in the "untrusted" basket.) This guy bypassed credentialing, and that places him in the realm of those who are not trusted no matter what kind of good they do. Now he can't continue. Instead of that, imagine there was a public debate about the relevant issues and this or a similar effort had actual public consensus and resources behind it. Now of course I'll grant there are numerous problems with the political process and consensus-building and all the rest of it. It takes a long time to get anything done, and learning how to hack is actually the easy part. Good news: This is actually not the emergency he claims it is. What's the worst-case scenario, the whole internet goes down tomorrow? Well, it's only the internet. There are ways of getting food, water and shelter without using a network at all. Nobody has forgotten how to use pen & paper. Even blankets will still work without an internet. (Not if these IoT clowns have their way of course.) Whatever, don't listen to me, I'm older and I lived almost half my life quite happily in a world where nobody had the internet, yet still everything got done. Anyway, the other thing is, a "state of emergency" is how all sorts of atrocities and shitty decisions are justified by governments, so it's not something to emulate. The attendant issues deserve to be publicly recognized, debated, decided and then tackled. Maybe it's wishful thinking to demand that much from people today.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- nautilus12 9y ago
  > This is a question of credentials only. And credentials are merely a way to build consensus around what is due process and who can determine it. The net effect is the same, but the process for achieving it is without consensus. This is another example of no proper channels existing, and individuals taking matters into their own hands.
  - chii 9y ago
    > individuals taking matters into their own hands. aka vigilantism. Sometimes it's required, but it signals that a proper channel should exist for such purposes.
    - TremendousJudge 9y ago
      but they don't. Would it be better if this person just tried to negotiate with notoriously unhelpful bureaucrats while blackhats run amok?
      - nautilus12 9y ago
        I actually agree with you to some extent. Its unfortunate this person has to become an outlaw though.
- gldalmaso 9y ago
  The worst case scenario should really be defined by just how long will the internet be down. 1 day is an inconvenience 1 week is major hurdle but can be overcome 1 month and people may start being laid off because they can't do their jobs and clients are cancelling services that they can't use Now how many people over-saturating an internetless job market will it take for food, water and shelter to become a problem is something to study. This may be an exaggeration, but since we are considering worst case scenarios.

I think the analogy is to the entire Internet being a single body, and chemotherapy being a nasty thing done to it that damages it, but destroys even more damaging things in the process.

rdiddly 9y ago

This is a question of credentials only. Which I don't mean to sound like I'm dismissing it at all - It's actually the whole reason this guy's effort got stranded. Chemotherapy is essentially controlled killing, to mitigate or prevent uncontrolled killing. Just like (as someone said elsewhere in this thread) controlled burning is done to mitigate or prevent uncontrolled burning. And here we have controlled hacking to mitigate uncontrolled hacking. Society doesn't support anybody killing, burning, or hacking, unless there's a way to know and recognize, that the person knows what they're doing. Which (the knowing and the recognizing) is a credentialing problem. It's the only difference between (doctors, police, firefighters, cybersecurity experts) and (quacks, vigilantes, arsonists and some-unknown-hacker), respectively. A guy I don't recognize as a surgeon, is just a masked man coming at me with a knife, even if he actually is a surgeon. If your intentions are good, you should take the trouble to get some kind of credentials, which can take many forms. (If your intentions are not-so-good then it makes a lot more sense to bypass that, but also for the public to put you in the "untrusted" basket.) This guy bypassed credentialing, and that places him in the realm of those who are not trusted no matter what kind of good they do. Now he can't continue. Instead of that, imagine there was a public debate about the relevant issues and this or a similar effort had actual public consensus and resources behind it. Now of course I'll grant there are numerous problems with the political process and consensus-building and all the rest of it. It takes a long time to get anything done, and learning how to hack is actually the easy part. Good news: This is actually not the emergency he claims it is. What's the worst-case scenario, the whole internet goes down tomorrow? Well, it's only the internet. There are ways of getting food, water and shelter without using a network at all. Nobody has forgotten how to use pen & paper. Even blankets will still work without an internet. (Not if these IoT clowns have their way of course.) Whatever, don't listen to me, I'm older and I lived almost half my life quite happily in a world where nobody had the internet, yet still everything got done. Anyway, the other thing is, a "state of emergency" is how all sorts of atrocities and shitty decisions are justified by governments, so it's not something to emulate. The attendant issues deserve to be publicly recognized, debated, decided and then tackled. Maybe it's wishful thinking to demand that much from people today.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
nautilus12 9y ago
> This is a question of credentials only. And credentials are merely a way to build consensus around what is due process and who can determine it. The net effect is the same, but the process for achieving it is without consensus. This is another example of no proper channels existing, and individuals taking matters into their own hands.
- chii 9y ago
  > individuals taking matters into their own hands. aka vigilantism. Sometimes it's required, but it signals that a proper channel should exist for such purposes.
  - TremendousJudge 9y ago
    but they don't. Would it be better if this person just tried to negotiate with notoriously unhelpful bureaucrats while blackhats run amok?
    - nautilus12 9y ago
      I actually agree with you to some extent. Its unfortunate this person has to become an outlaw though.
gldalmaso 9y ago
The worst case scenario should really be defined by just how long will the internet be down. 1 day is an inconvenience 1 week is major hurdle but can be overcome 1 month and people may start being laid off because they can't do their jobs and clients are cancelling services that they can't use Now how many people over-saturating an internetless job market will it take for food, water and shelter to become a problem is something to study. This may be an exaggeration, but since we are considering worst case scenarios.