7 ms·

I know this might not be a popular opinion. But showing people how to hack systems... that seems like an OK thing to ban. It's a crime. Teaching people how to

I know this might not be a popular opinion. But showing people how to hack systems... that seems like an OK thing to ban. It's a crime. Teaching people how to commit a crime has always been not OK.

vortico 7y ago
Most Constitution-respecting Americans will disagree. Committing a crime is not OK. Conveying information for learning is always OK.
- unreal37 7y ago
  Really? "It shall be unlawful for any person... to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction..."[1] Teaching bomb making is not legal. Passed the senate 94-0, no objections. There are things you can't teach. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842
  - vortico 7y ago
    You omitted the important part: "...with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence." The teaching alone is legal. The intent to set up someone to commit a crime is what makes it illegal. I can legally teach you how to make a bomb if I do not intend for you to use it for crime.
    - unreal37 7y ago
      That is an awfully thin hair to split. I challenge you on that last point. If you tried teaching bomb making in the United States, you would likely have be visited by a couple of ATF folks to have a talk. They would advise you strongly not to teach that. Anyways, best of luck. :)
      - vortico 7y ago
        I was pointing out that your quote was incomplete and cannot be used to support your point. Being visited by law enforcement does not imply that you have committed a crime.
influx 7y ago
How are security professional supposed to learn how to secure systems? This is silly, and I'm not surprised that Google is leaning towards censorship again. Where are all the Google cloud employees when you need them commenting on threads?
- rifung 7y ago
  > Where are all the Google cloud employees when you need them commenting on threads? I am a Google employee though not in Cloud. I am not really sure what commenting is going to accomplish here? I don't agree with this and many other things Google does, whether it be in my org or elsewhere. I am sure this is the case for many employees just from internal communications. Google is a huge company so I suppose this is just natural, and frankly I don't think the people who make these decisions really care what I or other Googlers think. After all, as the population increases it becomes increasingly difficult to make everyone happy.
  - influx 7y ago
    Thanks for reaching out, I'm glad to hear there are folks inside who disagree with this.
lutorm 7y ago
No, whether it's a crime depends. Is it a crime to teach people how to pick a lock?
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >Is it a crime to teach people how to pick a lock? I imagine that depends entirely on where the viewer lives, it wouldn't surprise me if some countries had laws that made it so. Mere possession of lock picks themselves, according to this site https://tihk.co/blogs/news/116232133-lock-pick-legality https://tihk.co/blogs/news/116232133-lock-pick-legality , appear to be enough to get you arrested for intent to commit a crime in 5 states. Given that laws vary wildly from county to county, city to city, state to state, country to country, sometimes stuff like this is simply CYA for YouTube. You also have to keep in mind that YouTube is not a webhosting service or content delivery network, they exist to sell adspace for 99% of their income, if advertisers don't want to appear around guns/pornographic material/material of questionable legality/etc then it's well within YouTube's right to prohibit such content whether or not is legal to distribute. People always rush to scream YouTube/Google is censoring them when they aren't. YouTube is not a government, YouTube is a business that sells ad space.
  - testvox 7y ago
    That site is wrong, lock picking tools in all those States are still legal to possess for non-criminal purposes same as all the other states. They just consider possession of such tools to be prima facie evidence that you have criminal intent. Prima facie evidence is basically evidence that if not disproved by the defense is by law sufficient to convict. So that means it's still legal to possess such tools in those states. But if prosecuted for criminal possession you basically lose the presumption of innocence and must prove you had no criminal intent rather than the state being required to prove that you did.
  - d1zzy 7y ago
    There is a difference however between demonetizing clips (ie not showing ads associated with certain content) and outright banning them. I feel the latter should be reserved for very few types of contents (mostly contents that is illegal to host).
waiseristy 7y ago
I suppose teaching people how to paint would also not be okay, as those people might now graffiti some wall and commit a crime!!
- unreal37 7y ago
  I know it's just a throwaway comment, but you don't take a course on "learning to paint" to do vandalism. You don't see courses on "ethical painting" like the person teaching it has to qualify that they're teaching the legal type of painting. You don't hear people talking about "white hack" and "black hat" painters. I assume you know hacking has a huge illegal component such that it always has to be qualified as good or bad when talking about it.
  - waiseristy 7y ago
    I see your point, but I don't think the fact that society has created a dichotomy of hackers means that we should ban all knowledge of hacking. This might be a better analogy for my feelings on the topic. Abortions are determined to be legal or illegal based on the time you have one. This is the dichotomy that we as a society have created. The method to abort a child at 1 month, and 1 month and 1 day will be exactly the same, but the legallity might be the opposite. Does that mean we need to ban all information on how to have a safe abortion? No, it means we need to enfore the laws already on the books for those having unsafe/ illegal abortions. The fact that knowledge is abused does not mean it should be censored. And on top of that maybe I want to know how to craft a pair of brass knuckles, or how to program a guidance system for a missle just because I'm curious.
ryanmercer 7y ago
I don't know about banning something because it leads to illegal activity, however I do see why they ban some content. I'm Pro 2a but YouTube was demonetizing, and even removing some, many firearm videos 1-2 years ago and it had everyone in the firearm community in an uproar and the people screaming the most were the uploaders that had videos along the lines of: "what happens if I shoot a barbie doll with a 50 cal" "what happens if I shoot a watermelon full of tanerite" "what happens if I microwave ammunition" (Demolition Ranch has an entire series of these) "what happens if I microwave a full ak mag" (Demolition Ranch has an entire series of these) "what happens if I put the wrong caliber ammunition in a firearm" (Demolition Ranch, also I believe King of Everything did this as well he also was in the news for at least two of his videos and had legal action taken against him for making explosives around the same time) Like, you aren't teaching people how to safely shoot or reviewing firearms, you're doing stupid stuff that is extremely dangerous and absolutely should not be replicated by viewers at home. Similarly Cody's Lab was losing it last year or the year before when his account was suspended... after he literally rushed through an airport talking to his phone animatedly about making explosives and --- blowing himself up --- in a previously uploaded prank video, and this year he's been griping about how his videos are being demonetized again... well... yeah... you poured liquid mercury into your mouth and were squirting it through your teeth... and you previously almost blew your finger off when you were whacking home-brew nitro glycerine with a steak knife... and you had the federal agents visit your house in response to when you talked about how to make yellow cake at home and were showing your incredibly poor storage methods for radioactive dust. You aren't being persecuted, Google and/or the authorities are trying to make sure you aren't going to do harm to others or instruct others how to do harm. I imagine the spirit behind this is more to ban videos like "hack your girlfriend's phone to install secret tracking apps" and "how to hack our neighbors WiFi" instead of "how to assess vulnerabilities in your network"
- calvinmorrison 7y ago
  > Like, you aren't teaching people how to safely shoot or reviewing firearms, you're doing stupid stuff that is extremely dangerous and absolutely should not be replicated by viewers at home. I agree. We should only publish videos of things that are safe for viewers to replicate.
vangelis 7y ago
A lot of knowledge can be used to commit crimes. That's a lot of knowledge that should be removed from the public, even if by force.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Zardoz84 7y ago
knowledge about how do something is the first step to protect against it.
im3w1l 7y ago
If "we" stop learning how to hack/manipulate/fight but "they" don't, then "we'll" be easy targets for "them".
1337biz 7y ago
This is a very important argument. It may sound stupid. But the point is the recent censorship efforts had even lower levels of pseudo logic. They censored away voices that were fully covered under free speech. To be honest I can sympathize with your 'crime tutorial' argument even slightly more than banning hate mongers. Hate is not a crime.

I know this might not be a popular opinion. But showing people how to hack systems... that seems like an OK thing to ban. It's a crime. Teaching people how to commit a crime has always been not OK.

vortico 7y ago

Most Constitution-respecting Americans will disagree. Committing a crime is not OK. Conveying information for learning is always OK.

unreal37 7y ago
Really? "It shall be unlawful for any person... to teach or demonstrate the making or use of an explosive, a destructive device, or a weapon of mass destruction..."[1] Teaching bomb making is not legal. Passed the senate 94-0, no objections. There are things you can't teach. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/842
- vortico 7y ago
  You omitted the important part: "...with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal crime of violence." The teaching alone is legal. The intent to set up someone to commit a crime is what makes it illegal. I can legally teach you how to make a bomb if I do not intend for you to use it for crime.
  - unreal37 7y ago
    That is an awfully thin hair to split. I challenge you on that last point. If you tried teaching bomb making in the United States, you would likely have be visited by a couple of ATF folks to have a talk. They would advise you strongly not to teach that. Anyways, best of luck. :)
    - vortico 7y ago
      I was pointing out that your quote was incomplete and cannot be used to support your point. Being visited by law enforcement does not imply that you have committed a crime.

influx 7y ago

How are security professional supposed to learn how to secure systems? This is silly, and I'm not surprised that Google is leaning towards censorship again. Where are all the Google cloud employees when you need them commenting on threads?

rifung 7y ago
> Where are all the Google cloud employees when you need them commenting on threads? I am a Google employee though not in Cloud. I am not really sure what commenting is going to accomplish here? I don't agree with this and many other things Google does, whether it be in my org or elsewhere. I am sure this is the case for many employees just from internal communications. Google is a huge company so I suppose this is just natural, and frankly I don't think the people who make these decisions really care what I or other Googlers think. After all, as the population increases it becomes increasingly difficult to make everyone happy.
- influx 7y ago
  Thanks for reaching out, I'm glad to hear there are folks inside who disagree with this.

lutorm 7y ago

No, whether it's a crime depends. Is it a crime to teach people how to pick a lock?

ryanmercer 7y ago
>Is it a crime to teach people how to pick a lock? I imagine that depends entirely on where the viewer lives, it wouldn't surprise me if some countries had laws that made it so. Mere possession of lock picks themselves, according to this site https://tihk.co/blogs/news/116232133-lock-pick-legality https://tihk.co/blogs/news/116232133-lock-pick-legality , appear to be enough to get you arrested for intent to commit a crime in 5 states. Given that laws vary wildly from county to county, city to city, state to state, country to country, sometimes stuff like this is simply CYA for YouTube. You also have to keep in mind that YouTube is not a webhosting service or content delivery network, they exist to sell adspace for 99% of their income, if advertisers don't want to appear around guns/pornographic material/material of questionable legality/etc then it's well within YouTube's right to prohibit such content whether or not is legal to distribute. People always rush to scream YouTube/Google is censoring them when they aren't. YouTube is not a government, YouTube is a business that sells ad space.
- testvox 7y ago
  That site is wrong, lock picking tools in all those States are still legal to possess for non-criminal purposes same as all the other states. They just consider possession of such tools to be prima facie evidence that you have criminal intent. Prima facie evidence is basically evidence that if not disproved by the defense is by law sufficient to convict. So that means it's still legal to possess such tools in those states. But if prosecuted for criminal possession you basically lose the presumption of innocence and must prove you had no criminal intent rather than the state being required to prove that you did.
- d1zzy 7y ago
  There is a difference however between demonetizing clips (ie not showing ads associated with certain content) and outright banning them. I feel the latter should be reserved for very few types of contents (mostly contents that is illegal to host).

waiseristy 7y ago

I suppose teaching people how to paint would also not be okay, as those people might now graffiti some wall and commit a crime!!

unreal37 7y ago
I know it's just a throwaway comment, but you don't take a course on "learning to paint" to do vandalism. You don't see courses on "ethical painting" like the person teaching it has to qualify that they're teaching the legal type of painting. You don't hear people talking about "white hack" and "black hat" painters. I assume you know hacking has a huge illegal component such that it always has to be qualified as good or bad when talking about it.
- waiseristy 7y ago
  I see your point, but I don't think the fact that society has created a dichotomy of hackers means that we should ban all knowledge of hacking. This might be a better analogy for my feelings on the topic. Abortions are determined to be legal or illegal based on the time you have one. This is the dichotomy that we as a society have created. The method to abort a child at 1 month, and 1 month and 1 day will be exactly the same, but the legallity might be the opposite. Does that mean we need to ban all information on how to have a safe abortion? No, it means we need to enfore the laws already on the books for those having unsafe/ illegal abortions. The fact that knowledge is abused does not mean it should be censored. And on top of that maybe I want to know how to craft a pair of brass knuckles, or how to program a guidance system for a missle just because I'm curious.

ryanmercer 7y ago

I don't know about banning something because it leads to illegal activity, however I do see why they ban some content. I'm Pro 2a but YouTube was demonetizing, and even removing some, many firearm videos 1-2 years ago and it had everyone in the firearm community in an uproar and the people screaming the most were the uploaders that had videos along the lines of: "what happens if I shoot a barbie doll with a 50 cal" "what happens if I shoot a watermelon full of tanerite" "what happens if I microwave ammunition" (Demolition Ranch has an entire series of these) "what happens if I microwave a full ak mag" (Demolition Ranch has an entire series of these) "what happens if I put the wrong caliber ammunition in a firearm" (Demolition Ranch, also I believe King of Everything did this as well he also was in the news for at least two of his videos and had legal action taken against him for making explosives around the same time) Like, you aren't teaching people how to safely shoot or reviewing firearms, you're doing stupid stuff that is extremely dangerous and absolutely should not be replicated by viewers at home. Similarly Cody's Lab was losing it last year or the year before when his account was suspended... after he literally rushed through an airport talking to his phone animatedly about making explosives and --- blowing himself up --- in a previously uploaded prank video, and this year he's been griping about how his videos are being demonetized again... well... yeah... you poured liquid mercury into your mouth and were squirting it through your teeth... and you previously almost blew your finger off when you were whacking home-brew nitro glycerine with a steak knife... and you had the federal agents visit your house in response to when you talked about how to make yellow cake at home and were showing your incredibly poor storage methods for radioactive dust. You aren't being persecuted, Google and/or the authorities are trying to make sure you aren't going to do harm to others or instruct others how to do harm. I imagine the spirit behind this is more to ban videos like "hack your girlfriend's phone to install secret tracking apps" and "how to hack our neighbors WiFi" instead of "how to assess vulnerabilities in your network"

calvinmorrison 7y ago
> Like, you aren't teaching people how to safely shoot or reviewing firearms, you're doing stupid stuff that is extremely dangerous and absolutely should not be replicated by viewers at home. I agree. We should only publish videos of things that are safe for viewers to replicate.

vangelis 7y ago

A lot of knowledge can be used to commit crimes. That's a lot of knowledge that should be removed from the public, even if by force.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Zardoz84 7y ago

knowledge about how do something is the first step to protect against it.

im3w1l 7y ago

If "we" stop learning how to hack/manipulate/fight but "they" don't, then "we'll" be easy targets for "them".

1337biz 7y ago

This is a very important argument. It may sound stupid. But the point is the recent censorship efforts had even lower levels of pseudo logic. They censored away voices that were fully covered under free speech. To be honest I can sympathize with your 'crime tutorial' argument even slightly more than banning hate mongers. Hate is not a crime.