A bit like my neighbor's door is wide open. Some teenagers are taking over it.
Instead of just close/lock the door for my neighbor or call the cop, I use a bulldozer to level the house to the ground. (zero out the flash.)
In theory, the "vigilante" can offer his service to device manufacturer to help remotely clean/update the devices instead of just simply wiping them off the net.
>Instead of just close/lock the door for my neighbor or call the cop,
This is where your analogy breaks. Who is your neighbor on the internet? The most logical answer I have is "Everyone with a public IP".
Next, who is the internet police? Sorry folks, there isn't one. If my neighbors house is open, I would call the cops for two reasons. First I don't want to see their stuff damaged. But also, it creates a public nuisance. Some variant of criminals (say drug users or stupid teens) could take up residence in their house, possibly even burning it down, which would make it a direct threat to me.
And that's the problem with our current internet police. They will gladly try to arrest you for breaking into someones house. But they will not bust the 100,000 houses that leave their front door open inviting crime into the neighborhood.
It does say the bot tries to secure the device and then resorts to bricking it if it can't. Not condoning the janitors actions but at least bricking isn't his first action.
> The point is how do you know the vigilante's fix won't have adverse side effects?
While you have raised some valid issues, this is not one of them. Having an unsecured device on the internet has some very definite adverse side-effects.
So does taking a vigilante approach to addressing these devices. It's no different than saying, there is crime in the inner city and It's my duty to handle it.
unfortunately, we know from past experience that a certain percentage of the manufacturers would attempt to sue anyone offering such a service into silence, or even attempt to have him prosecuted for a crime.
Instead of just close/lock the door for my neighbor or call the cop, I use a bulldozer to level the house to the ground. (zero out the flash.)
In theory, the "vigilante" can offer his service to device manufacturer to help remotely clean/update the devices instead of just simply wiping them off the net.