Only a tool [LWN.net]

Only a tool

Posted Jan 26, 2012 16:26 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)
In reply to: Only a tool by corbet
Parent article: LCA: Jacob Appelbaum on surveillance and censorship

Your pipebomb example is contrived, black and white. The real world has better examples.

Explosives are only tools, used extensively in mining for instance. No matter how well protected, it is sometimes stolen and used to rob banks or blow up cars. Would you ban all explosives? Would you charge those whose explosives were stolen with the crimes committed?

Guns have many uses; estimates range up to 2.5 million times a year in the US when someone uses a gun to deter crime, such as home burglaries or gay bashing, and my own limited experience with friends and neighbors thinks this might be low, altho it's anybody's guess how many of these deterred crimes would have actually happened. Those hoplophobes who hate guns would sue gun manufacturers when a gun is used for evil; but they ignore the good uses.

Cars are used in crimes, so are phones, bicycles, airplanes and boats, and we may as well get silly and throw in shoes and clothing and even food. Does anyone really need a car which can go as fast as 90% of the cars sold today? Should we take the really fast cheap ones, the "muscle" cars, off the market as being too commonly used for crimes such as speeding?

Governments make noises from time to time of banning pre-paid cell phones because they are hard to track and too often (by government standards) used by criminals. Should we ban all those?

Cash is awful, for government spying ends. The classic criminal tool is not guns or fast cars; it is a briefcase full of cash. You never see bad guys paying each other with checks or credit cards. Arguably cash is the most common crime tool and enabler. Should we ban cash?

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Only a tool

Posted Jan 26, 2012 17:33 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Is the example contrived? Is it really more black-and-white than "if it's a tool, it's OK to make regardless of its intent"? If you say "tools are tools, no exceptions" you have to accept examples like that. Either the pipe bomb stand is OK, or there are some "tools" whose existence you are unwilling to tolerate.

Assuming the latter, doesn't it make sense to ask which side of the line a device like FinFly stands on?

Again, I am aware of the dangers of this discussion. To have some government decree that free software and general-purpose computers are tools for hacking and infringement that should be banned is not even remotely unimaginable. I hope I don't have to say that I would be opposed to anything along those lines. But we'll not head off that prospect by refusing to discuss the culpability of those who make tools that are explicitly designed and marketed for illegal and immoral purposes. Indeed, I fear that there is a good chance that we could make it more likely.

Only a tool

Posted Jan 26, 2012 17:43 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

I was more saying that your pipebomb example is too simple to be a useful example; very few programs are written with anywhere near that single minded clarity. Perhaps a better response would have been to say that if you want to ban roadside pipebomb stands, you have to also ban roadside stands, pipes, and matches, all of which are entirely innocent by themselves.