Re: Cryptogram Comment

From: Tom St Denis (tom_at_securescience.net)
Date: 06/18/04 

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:06:22 GMT

Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:

>
> Tom St Denis <tom@securescience.net> says...
>
>>I mean let's put this argument into gear here. Let's say you wrote a
>>compiler of some sort [VHDL for instance]. I go out and get 1337-<|-4<|<o
>>3n and pirate your compiler. Would you then be willing to answer support
>>questions to "ensure I make a reliable product"? I mean the well being of
>>my users is at stake here!
>
> If a bug in that compiler allowed someone to take over thousands of
> computers and have them mount a DDOS attack on my server, I would
> expect - make that demand - that the compiler vendor fix the bug and
> offer the fix for free to all users (legal and pirate) of his product.

But why pirates? Why are people who violate your rights entitled *further*
to your work? I think this is all being spoken from people who don't give
out their work for free.

In fact Bruce's reply to me was essentially "I'm in the security business.
If it was economically viable I would work for free." Which is just
hypocritical. I'm sure if Microsoft could stay alive while giving out XP
they would do that too.

These types of debates remind me of the people on /. who think "information
should be free!". They are, of course, the same people who don't work hard
on things [music, video, software] and are not at risk of having pirates
subvert their careers.

Any private sector company is responsible to it's customers and shareholders
only. Not to people who steal from them then turn around and cry injustice
when they get rooted by a 9 month old exploit....

Tom

Relevant Pages

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