Educational use is definitely interesting. That's largely how I've become an expert at security myself, because there is so much security related information & resources available under the disclaimer of "educational purposes only".
However I do think that there are some interesting corner cases. Looking at extreme cases, what about selling nuclear bombs for educational purposes? There are certainly scientific tests that could be done with the bomb and humanity would be better off for having done it. However I think that selling nuclear bombs without restrictions, or launching the sale campaign in the middle of Raqqa would lead to undesirable results.
This leads me to belive that we as a global society certainly aren't ready for every tool to be available unrestricted for educational purposes. What's more, I don't think we're even ready for every tutorial to be available unrestricted, because the cross section of people who can follow the tutorial and also want to end civilization as we know it is still too numerous.
I also don't like censorship or the idea of hindering scientific progress. I would definitely like to progress towards a world where nuclear bombs can be sold at WalMart and nobody would cause problems with them.
We're not there yet and I'm not sure how exactly we can even get there. Until we do, as much as I hate to say it, even educational purposes will have to be sacrificed for the greater good. Where exactly we draw the line is a tough nut to crack and I personally don't hold a strong opinion of a specific line yet.
Looking at Stuxnet [1] the distance between those two is less than most think, and the distance is only decreasing. More important is the takeaway that it's getting easier and easier for a misguided teenager to cause industrial scale harm. So the classic problem of a punk kid breaking a window gets amplified.
Of course there are other options besides banning software to improve the situation. Among them is increasing awareness of the possible threats, and that software like NanoCore makes mischief easier to execute.
What a peculiar thing to argue, but in the same spirit most nukes haven't killed a single person. The ones that did had really good delivery mechanisms, which don't come prepackaged with the nuke.
Are you really arguing that nuclear weapons and stuxnet are similar because most nukes haven't been used on people? Why?
I get that you're saying Stuxnet is an example of programming having real world, physical effects, but this is a very strange argument because a lot of things that we have no moral or legal issue with anyone owning have the potential for outsized physical effect. Nuclear weapons have been used to kill hundreds of thousands of people, so the line we spoke about earlier, they belong on the 'not for everyone and ideally not for anyone' side of it, along with chemical and biological weapons.
> Are you really arguing that nuclear weapons and stuxnet are similar because most nukes haven't been used on people?
Definitely not arguing that they're similar. More so about the difference decreasing at a greater rate than people seem to realize.
Taking a step back and talking in more general terms. Nukes are dangerous because they allow one person to do harm to masses. The same statement is increasingly more true in the software world. I feel like this isn't understood well enough (or is ignored?) by most people.
As an example, we're putting more and more software into cars, internet connected software even. If this software follows the security practices of almost any other software, then it won't take long until malicious users will move from opening CD trays to car doors.
However I do think that there are some interesting corner cases. Looking at extreme cases, what about selling nuclear bombs for educational purposes? There are certainly scientific tests that could be done with the bomb and humanity would be better off for having done it. However I think that selling nuclear bombs without restrictions, or launching the sale campaign in the middle of Raqqa would lead to undesirable results.
This leads me to belive that we as a global society certainly aren't ready for every tool to be available unrestricted for educational purposes. What's more, I don't think we're even ready for every tutorial to be available unrestricted, because the cross section of people who can follow the tutorial and also want to end civilization as we know it is still too numerous.
I also don't like censorship or the idea of hindering scientific progress. I would definitely like to progress towards a world where nuclear bombs can be sold at WalMart and nobody would cause problems with them.
We're not there yet and I'm not sure how exactly we can even get there. Until we do, as much as I hate to say it, even educational purposes will have to be sacrificed for the greater good. Where exactly we draw the line is a tough nut to crack and I personally don't hold a strong opinion of a specific line yet.