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by beefhash 2683 days ago
Tor, Bittorrent, Bitcoin and IDA Pro are all fascinating technology. Guns are also fascinating technology. The world has gun control, but not software control. I agree with your parent comment that we need to stop letting dangerous knowledge and (even worse) ready-to-use tools be spread openly.

As far as I know, at least Hex-Rays screens customers very carefully before selling IDA Pro.
3 comments
wedn3sday 2683 days ago
The world very much DOES have software control. There are whole sets of countries that cannot use certain versions of SSL and other popular encryption tools because of software export controls. Yes, the governments of these places can still get access, but they can also buy weapons ect on the black market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography

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manigandham 2678 days ago
How exactly are you going to stop the spread of knowledge? Has there ever been an example of that which worked?
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shittyadmin 2682 days ago
Attempting to control such a thing would be even more frivolous than the War on Drugs, governments ability to control things is quite limited without taking extremely draconian measures. We don't need a War on Software.

Your stance against so called "dangerous knowledge" worries me - would you encourage banning books about cryptography and software development?

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