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Security researcher Collin Mulliner was surprised and angered to learn an open source toolkit he authored to enable hacking of Android phones, had been incorporated into the arsenal of spyware sold by the Hacking Team to its clients, which include a variety of police states around the world. Of course the discovery was made possible by the recent leak of over 400 GB of Hacking Team's source code; the tipster found Mulliner's contact info in the source code and figured he was a paid consultant.
Mulliner, a German researcher currently affiliated with Boston's Northeastern University, presented the toolkit at a security conference in 2012; it combines mechanisms for hooking Android API functions in Linux userspace, with NFC/RFID hardware-level hacking, the latter apparently done in collaboration with fellow researcher Charlie Miller. Installation requires being in close physical proximity to the target's phone, to exploit NFC.
Mulliner stops short of accusing the Hacking Team of using his code unlawfully, but feels violated nonetheless. He vowed that his future projects will come with a license prohibiting use by "bad actors" - while admitting he doesn't know what such a license would look like.
Richard Stallman has consistently opposed tacking a "no military use" or similar onto the GPL:
Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the program as you wish. If a license restricts how you can run the program, the program is not free software.
This criterion is crucial. We cannot accept programs in the GNU system which have limits on what they can be used for. If we did, different programs would come with different limits. One program, perhaps written by Muslims, might ban use by restaurants that serve alcohol; another program, perhaps written by the Munich Oktoberfest committee, might ban use by restaurants that do not serve alcohol. Continuing along these lines, we might end up with a system that nobody would be allowed to use.
But of course, even open source advocates are free to disagree with Stallman on many issues.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:07AM
In general the “hanging on tightly” part becomes the core problem¹, extremely exaggerated it is as if once they've done “1 + 1 = 2” they decide all arithmetical questions must be “1 + 1” and thus always answer “2” or compare any actual or given result with “2” :D
¹ And it applies no matter what one calls it; principles, ideals, ideology, religion, politics, values, the names don't matter.
I say “they” but it's a challenge for everyone and one has to actively fight it and try to avoid it (and also realize that one most likely haven't managed to: it's not like any of us are omniscient).
Principles all too often (nearly always) end up becoming simple excuses for not having to think; just another hindrance against actually thinking and a dumb template used to decide sides and “allegiances”.
Principles are very effective at removing or ignoring context (doing so is pretty much the definition of principle) and preventing reexamination, I think it would be better to never give any abstract notion (be it principles or anything else) such veto power over your thoughts/thinking. It seems to me that the more one argues/debates with oneself (aka thinking) and others the less useful and more harmful principles become.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:40PM
And it applies no matter what one calls it; principles, ideals, ideology, religion, politics, values, the names don't matter.
Politicians are the exact opposite of principled.
Principles all too often (nearly always) end up becoming simple excuses for not having to think; just another hindrance against actually thinking and a dumb template used to decide sides and “allegiances”.
Then those people are doing silly things unrelated to principles.
Principles are very effective at removing or ignoring context (doing so is pretty much the definition of principle) and preventing reexamination
People are effective at that, not principles.
I think it would be better to never give any abstract notion (be it principles or anything else) such veto power over your thoughts/thinking.
That should include pragmatic thinking, then.
It seems to me that the more one argues/debates with oneself (aka thinking) and others the less useful and more harmful principles become.
I thought you wanted to encourage thinking?
Say I value the freedom to be free from mass surveillance as more important than any safety mass surveillance can bring (even if it was effective). It's not that I'm unwilling to hear arguments that mass surveillance increases safety; it's that I don't care much because I don't base my opinion of mass surveillance on how much safety it brings.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday July 27 2015, @07:03AM
Sorry for replying late. The point I'm making (or trying to make) is well illustrated with a positive example by you at the end where you gave a brief example of some reasoning on a specific topic rather than invoking a (general) principle or reducing it to a principle. Maybe you thought of it as a principle but since the thoughts are too nuanced and specific it doesn't lend itself easily to that (although you could possibly have said something like “…the principle of individual liberty” and left it at that without anyone knowing nearly as much about what and how you actually think or even what you were talking about nor realizing it if all they did was fill in all the empty gaps with their own opinions).
Compared to espousing a principle (or its stronger relative: dogma, or any other “shortcuts”) your example got closer to the details and context and invites far more thinking by/in those who read it. It also opens up the possibility for people to get detailed either in support or in disagreement; a conversation. It communicates clearly or at least far more clearly than principles usually do, and fewer people trip and fall into battlefield trenches from preconceived notions and biases.
Many politicians are (unfortunately) very principled (principles doesn't automatically mean “good”, valuable, correct, sensible, or reasoned etc.). Silly things aren't necessarily unrelated to principles. Principles make it easier to ignore context, they are based on generalizations which of course means they are based on removing context, this is what principles are, it's the whole point of them to focus on something principal and it's why they're named principles. It sure does include pragmatic thinking, that shouldn't be given any kind of veto power either.
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(Score: 1) by jdavidb on Monday July 27 2015, @06:21PM
Principles all too often (nearly always) end up becoming simple excuses for not having to think
I think you'd have to be able to read minds to be able to say that accurately. Most people are going to feel quite disrespected to have their conclusions dismissed with "you aren't thinking."
It seems to me that the more one argues/debates with oneself (aka thinking) and others the less useful and more harmful principles become.
I've had the opposite experience.
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