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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

This kind of technology is far too useful to repressive regimes and those who wish to do nasty things with it.

This means that the incentive to develop this technology is already there, and so it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't.

The only difference at this point is whether some of the implementations are developed in public view or not. If none are public, then all of them will be done in secret, and our opportunities to develop countermeasures will be severely hampered by having fewer eyes on it, and a smaller entry funnel for potential white hats.

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> it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't.

Sure, but there's a value in delaying that development. Delaying harm is a valid tactic.

The entities with interest in it have bigger pockets than some random open source project.

There are many small entities with interest in such a technology which don't have huge budgets. Small terrorist / extremist organizations pushing a specific agenda.

Countries like China can no doubt develop this independently, but they are unlikely to share the technology with random extremists.

> > it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't.

> Sure, but there's a value in delaying that development. Delaying harm is a valid tactic.

It is a horrible tactic when your adversary has ultra-deep pockets & mountains of bodies to throw at the problem.

Whatever's being developed here has 1/10th the capability of the tech being developed in black site facilities at the behest of national militaries.

Which are blocked from pulling from Github?

> Which are blocked from pulling from Github?

In the case that they're blocked: They'd only need one unrestricted computer to pull their libraries into & subsequently copy that onto siloed off workstations. It's not like anyone will actually care to notice.

In the case that they aren't blocked: Business as usual.

Exactly.

You really think the government sponsored projects are subject to bans on downloading stuff from GitHub?

Are we in a rhetorical question competition? :)

> Whatever's being developed here has 1/10th the capability of the tech being developed in black site facilities at the behest of national militaries.

Debatable at least in case of smaller dictatorships like North Korea, Eritrea, Qatar ...

Alternatively, having tools like this easily available makes it easier to raise awareness and build teams to combat them.

Delay until when?

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