But this is not a problem with the tool, this is a problem with those platforms. Even if this tool is not published, bad actors can still make their own tools.
I think we should rather demand the platforms to enforce better measures against this kind of usage, rather than blaming this tool.
I take an issue with the argument that bad actors can make their own tools. Bad actors can also build their own nuclear weapons, genetically engineer their own deadly diseases but there's certainly value in not making this any easier. If you take the time, money and effort away from bad actors by forcing them to reinvent the wheel, that's a good thing.
Granted, this logic can't be viably applied to most things, but there are projects where you can assume that most of the use-cases will be shady.
Exactly! There’s a totally different bar to entry. Look at North Korea. I don’t think they rank highly as a concern with traditional kinetic warfare, but they have made themselves a major security concern even with scant resources because the bar to entry with cyber warfare is just that much lower.
> Granted, this logic can't be viably applied to most things,…
This specific thing, for example.
> ... but there are projects where you can assume that most of the use-cases will be shady.
An assumption is a poor basis for an argument. Even in the case where the assumption turns out to be correct, I don't buy this line of reasoning, because it would apply generally to security tools. Such reasoning also makes it far easier to attack things even where the assumption is known to be wrong (e.g. bittorrent).
Tools like this are trivial to make and it's trivial to do it manually using Google. I don't see any point in getting angry about the existence of tools like that, as it's beyond anyone's power to stop people from doxxing each other.
I did something similar to this for a hackathon in university. Obviously not as sophisticated as this, but the concept is trivial. If you know enough about the command line to install it, you can build it.
Perfect example was the youtube-dl. Making an app to download videos from YouTube is relatively trivial for most semi-experienced developers but that doesn't mean I want to invest the time doing it, plus the effort of keeping it up to date every time YouTube changes something. So youtube-dl is enabling me and less technical people to download content from YouTube, and it's "going away" for a short time caused an outcry.
So there's a difference between "this is possible" and "this is a tool that makes it really easy"
Depends on what you mean by missile. One worth dozens of millions of USD and produced largely to prop-up a state economy tends to have different ethical considerations versus an adhoc assemblage of propane tanks and plumbing pipes produced to fight over the neighbourhood in which it was made.
You know what would be a great addition to this tool: A transparency panel/dashboard that shows any state organizations or LEO systems that are using it.
List out all the IPs and countries that are state IPs using it.
I was thinking a modification such that the system will report where its run from and if the reported IP is recognized as a government agency, display it - else drop it.
Any openly available tool can be used by anyone for any purpose. The idea that we can pick and choose is ridiculous, and with the exception of rare cases, avoidance of building generally useful tools for the chance that bad actors will also use them is a losing proposition.
Any openly available tool can be used by anyone for any purpose. The idea that we can pick and choose is ridiculous
And yet there are hundreds of laws, conventions, and treaties regulating all kinds of weapons. The idea that humans can pick and choose what exists in their society is ridiculous.
Bad actors can make such tool themselves (if they can't, they are not really that good) and have incentive to do that, so non existence will only slow them down. I don't care about analyzing other people for any purpose so I don't. Having this tool readily available lets me analyze myself and people I care about to protect them from bad actors and educate them in the process.
Please keep in mind that some HNers are modeling their behavior after buggy machines and bad code and that this influences their thinking and language.
The sentence was unnecessary to both your point and any argument in general. Why did you include it? Why are you defending it's inclusion? Why are you now saying "google it"?
Pretty troubling statement.
Does this tool help repressive governments track people across accounts? That’s sure what it looks like.