RE: Meritocracies and freedom of information

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sat Oct 13 2001 - 15:53:56 MDT


Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> I don't think one should entirely restrict access to information.
> I do think a lot more thought needs to be devoted to determining
> that it is indeed going to be utilized responsibly.

This is a big question now, especially in the security fields. Should we
reveal known vulnerabilities, or should we keep them secret? I don't know
what I think about this. The main problem is that big companies almost
always refuse to fix security vulnerabilities until they become well-known
and the public demands a fix. They feel that security by obscurity is good
enough, and seek to keep their flaws secret so that they don't have to fix
them.

--
Harvey Newstrom <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
Principal Security Consultant, Newstaff Inc. <www.Newstaff.com>
Board of Directors, Extropy Institute <www.Extropy.org>
Cofounder, Pro-Act <www.ProgressAction.org>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:13 MDT