Jesse Skinner

Patching Worm

If someone were to write a worm that went around the Internet, eliminating the vulnerability of the computers it passes through, is that immoral? Is it illegal? Since the worm is doing no damage (unless you consider patching a hole to be damaging somehow), I wonder what the implications would be. What would people say if Microsoft released a patching-worm before someone released a damaging one?

Published on August 29th, 2005. © Jesse Skinner

About the author

Jesse Skinner

I'm Jesse Skinner, a freelance software engineer. Since 2001 I've been building web apps that last, and rescuing those that didn't. I'm available to take on one or two new clients. Here's how I work.

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