With all of the talk about morals and ethics, these are the 2 questions I ask myself whenever making a tough decision:
1) Am I making the world a better place or a worse place?
2) Am I providing value to the people I care about?
I can't speak for Charlie Miller. But, my answer would be no for both questions. If I were in the same position as him I would feel like a big piece of fucking shit every single morning when I looked at myself in the mirror.
I think Charlie Miller wakes up thinking, "you're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men, but I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd". Then he goes off getting in all kinds of adventures and shit, like Kane from Kung Fu.
By finding Safari bugs, he does make the world a better place. But he can't live like that, so he has to stop looking for Safari bugs.
Since Safari undoubtedly has bugs, this means someone else is going to find them. That someone else could be a criminal, but you can't blame the guy for not wanting to do work that doesn't pay. In the end, Safari's security is Apple's problem, not Charlie Miller's.
I understand that he has to eat. But making enough money to eat is not that hard.
And it isn't just Apple's problem (or just Microsoft or just Google). It's my problem, too. It's my mom's problem, too.
Think about the case where a user's data is compromised.
With great power comes great responsibility, and whatever other cheesey statement you want to make. I would feel personally responsible if I found an exploit and later that exploit was used to compromise someone's bank account or private correspondence.
My conscience is more important than my stomach. I can find other ways to eat.
I would feel personally responsible if I found an exploit and later that exploit was used to compromise someone's bank account or private correspondence.
Which is why he's not even looking for exploits anymore. He is leaving it to Apple's QA team, since it is really their job.
