And without raising awareness of the issue, everybody might always be somewhat vulnerable forever, whereas now that "we know", after being highly vulnerable for

And without raising awareness of the issue, everybody might always be somewhat vulnerable forever, whereas now that "we know", after being highly vulnerable for a short time everybody's vulnerability to this should drop to zero very quickly. If you assume a limited number of evildoers and a limited ability to exploit this at will (e.g. you have to catch your victim in close proximity on public wi-fi that you're sharing with him), releasing a tool like Firesheep may produce significantly less total damage.