That's a fair point. I guess any time you try to unofficially exploit a system's weaknesses to prove a point, and you fail, you should expect to be treated like

That's a fair point. I guess any time you try to unofficially exploit a system's weaknesses to prove a point, and you fail, you should expect to be treated like any other person who was busted trying to exploit the system. Otherwise, the system still failed. If that researcher actually got a change into millions of user's linux systems, he would look like a genius, new checks would be put in place to catch his techniques, and everyone would be auditing every past commit on various open projects looking for other similar attacks. But instead, the system worked as intended, and now you can't go back and say "lol just kidding, it's a social experiment bro!" It's a risk you'd better be willing to take.