I agree that all information *should* be free, and in a perfect world that would be great ... but this is an imperfect world.

Merlyn's point was merely that people should be cautious when answering questions of a "how do i hack this thing?" nature ... maybe the intentions are good, maybe the person is just curious, maybe their intentions are evil -- he's not saying it's your job to know, and to only answer quiestions asked by noble people ... he's just suggesting caution.

I suggest using common sense.

personally, I agreed with most of your post up untill this point...

Put another way, you choose to connect yourself to the Internet. You choose to have a website up and running. You choose to take credit-card information. You choose to not have the necessary knowledge / personnel / skills / etc. If I were going to harden a site, I would charge a lot of money to do so. Why should I protect you for free?

"Why?" becuase you're a human being and a member of a (virtual) society that should aspire to loftier goals then total anarchy and an "every man for himself" mentality.

It's a lot easier and cheaper to shatter a large glass window (to rob a store, or rape and murder a family) then it is to create and install shatter proof glass. I wouldn't ask you to stand guard in front of my house, or even to help me pay for shatter proof windows -- but as a member of humanity the least you can do is not help someone (who looks sketchy, talks sketchy, and acts sketchy) you see trying to bust through a window of with their fists, by pointing out that a brick or a sledge hammer would work better.

In reply to Re: Information sharing by hossman
in thread Information sharing by dragonchild

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