Obviously it is my responsibility to keep those bytes away from you.
If you come into possession of them in the absence of some kind of contractual obligation regarding how you'll handle them (ie a privacy policy to which you and I have jointly agreed), then yes of course you can do what you wish with them.
Isn't this the same argument currently making its way through the public mindshare regarding WikiLeaks? Of course they had a right to distribute and comment on the contents of the State Dept. cables. The fact that the government claimed they were private (classified) can not overcome the basic thrust of freedoms of the press and speech.
Ok, so you're walking down the street with a locked phone in your pocket. I send an Android Bluetooth 0-day payload to your phone. Nothing wrong with that, after all I'm just asking your phone if it wants to copy some bytes, and it says 'sure!'. Not my problem if your phone does something funky with those bytes.
Now I have root, and copy off all of your pictures and private data onto my device. Nothing wrong with that, just copying some bytes, right?
Finally, I have all of your data, no contractual obligations to you on how I use it. So I'll just copy some bytes over to Twitter or Instagram and publish your private photos to the world. That's all ok in your book, because all the time I'm just copying bytes?
Your point is so reductivist that it is absurd. It's like declaring that any human action is just wiggling of fingers or flapping of vocal chords, and what can be so bad with wiggling fingers or flapping vocal cords?
Yes, in a free society, it's my responsibility to be a ward against 0-days. This is the problem with unduly complex and / or closed source software and closed, proprietary hardware being in our pockets in the first place.
To paint over these problems by restraining basic, fundamental speech (ie, you can repeat anything you know to anyone, specific contracts notwithstanding) is throwing away the baby instead of the bathwater.
I'm not saying think of the children. I'm not even making an arugment with that previous post - I'm probing your viewpoints to see if your worldview truly allows free sharing of information from one party to another as it appears you claimed.
I could have just as easily said terrorist propaganda, beheading videos, revenge porn, bomb making manuals, or a lot of other things. My point is to find out if you really believe in unrestrained speech, or if you yourself have limits to what is allowable free speech vs unallowable.
Okay, so I commit a crime and steal all sorts of personal data from a phone, but then hand that data off to someone else - who knows that I did something naughty to obtain it - who then posts it for all the world to see.
That second person did nothing wrong?
Also, did I really break into the phone? I just hypothetically asked if it wanted to copy some bytes, and it said yes.
> Obviously it is my responsibility to keep those bytes away from you.
If you're in your home changing and accidentally leave a window open, I shouldn't be watching you through binoculars. Whether it's bits and bytes or images or sounds, it doesn't make any difference, we're ultimately trying to avoid various types of harm.
And that means you're right in that it is your responsibility to be prudent because people will do bad things, but at the same time it's also my responsibility not to intentionally spy on you. Though, that shirt has to go.
If you come into possession of them in the absence of some kind of contractual obligation regarding how you'll handle them (ie a privacy policy to which you and I have jointly agreed), then yes of course you can do what you wish with them.
Isn't this the same argument currently making its way through the public mindshare regarding WikiLeaks? Of course they had a right to distribute and comment on the contents of the State Dept. cables. The fact that the government claimed they were private (classified) can not overcome the basic thrust of freedoms of the press and speech.