It's time for the FTC to investigate Mac security
When I read the headline about a security researcher who had published proof-of-concept code for a vulnerability, I was upset. To disseminate proof-of-concept code is to basically say, "Here is a way to attack computers for those of you who can't figure out how to do it yourselves." The analogy that comes to mind is to throw a gun on a playground and let kids figure out how to load it.
By the time I had finished reading the article, though, my attitude had changed.
The purpose of stunts such as this one is to embarrass a vendor into fixing problems and writing better software. The problem with that scheme is that even when it works exactly as planned, it is users who get hurt, not the vendor. A significant number of users just do not implement fixes when they are available. These people are the ones who suffer (along with all those innocent third parties who pay the price when the PCs belonging to inattentive users are compromised and added to a botnet).
