Forced Open Source

For those of you not up to date on the latest nerd news, there was a pretty big throw down this week between Symantec, and a hacker claiming to be Anonymous (here's one of many articles). So while Anonymous has caught my attention this semester, and I'll admit to even finding some of their hijinks amusing (dare I say I approve?), this one is a pretty cut-and-dry crime. Leaking the source code to an antivirus is somewhere on the same level as giving away free copies of your house-key.  I don't approve of crime, be it in the real world or digital, but I'd like to play the devils advocate here for a minute and argue for the other team. Perhaps there is still some good here?

I'm still intrigued by the idea of organic reactions in Ghost Map, and there's another concept linked closely - for those of you in the social sciences, I believe it's called structural functionalism. It's a theory that states all forces in society serve a purpose - including crime. While it certainly stinks for anyone who might use Symantec software, and even more so for people who *make* Symantec software, this even will lead to two things: 1) A new and improved version of Symantec, and 2) a new and improved version of many other anti-virus companies who can build off of Symantec's mistake. Again, I'm not condoning the actions of an illegal hacker group, but rather drawing attention to some perhaps overlooked concepts, which might even help in focusing our final project.

The point I'm trying to make is that all bad things aren't bad entirely. Structural-functionalism proposes that crime serves the purpose of 'sharpening' society and unifying communities, and at the same time marking those who do not function well in society as criminals. Online crime ensures that people secure their information flows, and makes examples of those who don't - a kind of social Darwinism. If no one ever had to worry about their computer being hacked, would we have developed the kind of privilege settings required for a functioning network? Perhaps hackers are part of the reason we have learned to control our information flow, and to check our sources on the internet.

Now for the application - so what? You just read a whole long article, and you want something you can talk about in class to show for it. Here's something for you - perhaps not all problems should be solved. Maybe low voter turn out is a good thing - it prevents the uninformed from electing some one who's not qualified. If an industry is disappearing, then maybe it's about time it made way for a new one. And if hackers are breaking into company networks and stealing source code, then good news! Other companies will be better off for it.