Timeline for Handling illegal/immoral questions and answers
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
26 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 6, 2011 at 22:43 | history | unlocked | CommunityBot | ||
| Oct 6, 2011 at 22:43 | history | notice removed | CommunityBot | ||
| Sep 29, 2011 at 22:04 | history | notice added | Sam CoganMod | Comments only | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 22:04 | history | locked | Sam CoganMod | ||
| Sep 29, 2011 at 21:48 | comment | added | John Gardeniers | @TechZilla, some people consider things such as car theft to be a profession but does that make it any more acceptable to the victims when their cars are stolen? | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 19:13 | comment | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | @ChrisS Please take it to chat. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 19:13 | comment | added | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | @TechZilla Please take it to chat. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 19:09 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | could you point me to the post about "administrative password reset techniques" or discussion. I want to get an understanding for what level of subjectivity the moderators have. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 19:04 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | I understand not trying to be all inclusive, but these grey areas are our issues. think about this, police know how people commit crimes and where they commit them. I also want to know, if serverfault provides any explanation for closed posts? I think that information will guide people in the right direction. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 19:00 | comment | added | Chris S | @TechZilla If you want to get Jeff involved you can certainly try. I wont put words in his mouth, but he did put the moderation system in place as it stands now, and for a reason. Regardless, we aren't interested in legal technicalities. Laws change from one place to another. We aren't going to use any of them as a measuring stick. We've been through this discussion before regarding administrative password reset techniques. The community implemented policy stands. If it's a really light shade of gray discussion, the community will likely allow it. It's usually much more cut and dry however. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:59 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | Just knowing what version of what software is vulnerable, does not address less common situations. Sometimes it is necessary to discus the how to. For example if you want to prevent exploits with mod-security rules, or .htaccess. Patches sometimes show up too late. Sometimes you can't upgrade software (I've been there, for a slew of reasons) I can understand not giving a tutorial for script kiddies, but we should be able to deal with them appropriately. If it seems fishy, it may be. I'm just saying we shouldn't be closing any topics about such subjects without context. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:49 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | @Chris: In addition, who really has never been victimized by a self righteous mod before? mabey not here, but elsewhere. they exists, they always will exist, and we should at least try to protect discussions that are legal if put to action. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:48 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | I'm not talking about the guy who states his illegal intention of subverting servers he doesn't administrate. I'm talking about the person who is trying to secure servers, and understand what is out there, to better protect themselves. One person's actions would be legal, one would not. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:45 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | and what I meant about "personal opinions"... I did not (and still don't) care about any given individual's feeling about this subject. It does not answer the question. Who decided to make this site called "serverfault", was it the community? Who decided it was for professionals? You really can't deny that certain security questions are related to our profession. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:42 | comment | added | Chris S | @TechZilla I'm not sure I follow. Discussion security vulnerabilities is not the same as telling someone how to break into a system. The former is a welcome aspect of system administration. The latter is the gray/black area we don't deal with. A good example is the Apache Range vulnerability; it's good to know what versions are vulnerable, and workaround to patch them. It's not acceptable to post a script (or even to describe how it would work) to exploit a vulnerable server. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:39 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | @Chris, regardless of anyone's opinion, systems security is not a "technicality". Systems People have been fired over break ins, and need to know the threats out there. In general you would hire a security auditor, but the fixes all fall on us. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:24 | comment | added | Chris S | Further, if you feel you have been victimized by a moderator you are free to e-mail contact the SE team (contact us link at the bottom of every page) for their review. I'll mention that some users have felt this site should be a free for all in the past; some of them have been blocked and the rest all left. Each SE site focuses on a specific group of people, not the public at large. The goal is not to be all inclusive... | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 18:13 | comment | added | Chris S | @TechZilla, we're not concerned with the technicality that someone might consider breaking into someone else's system a profession. The vast majority would agree that such activities are not ethical and material describing how to do so is therefore not welcome on SF. Each SE site has it's own administrative/moderator teams, there might be some overlap, but it's not really intentional. You seem a bit confused, you start with "Personal opinions from the community .. are just opinions" then go on to "the site needs to define [the] benefit". So do you want the community's opinion or not? | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 17:40 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | I'd except any official answer, even if the answer is 100% the discretion of the moderating community. It seems it would serve everyone the best to have something explaining. I appologize for any misunderstanding, I might not understand how this whole stackexchange thing works. Which again could be served best by having something about it in the FAQ. (which I have read, and IMO is lacking on the flagging and bad answer section) | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 17:32 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | @Chris S, we should be able to have those "process and procedures" defined. Even if I don't like the answer, I'd want it from serverfault.com or stack exchange. what is acceptable and what is not, and what to do about it, should be clearly defined. Personal opinions from the community, and self righteous moderators, are just opinions. I don't believe, because you have reputation for providing quality answers, you should get to decide "process and procedure". moderating in general is done for the benefit of site. the site needs to define what that benefit looks like. | |
| Sep 29, 2011 at 17:23 | comment | added | J. M. Becker | @John Gardenier, you forget that breaking in someone's else system sometimes is considered a profession. | |
| Jun 27, 2011 at 2:22 | comment | added | John Gardeniers | @dunxd, I can't find an example right now but that question most certainly has been asked more than once. | |
| Jun 24, 2011 at 11:42 | comment | added | dunxd | Is there an example of when someone asked to break into someone else's system, or is all this theoretical? | |
| Jun 22, 2011 at 0:57 | comment | added | John Gardeniers | While morals and ethics are fluid concepts at best, professionalism demands a degree of honesty and integrity that makes some questions and answers unacceptable. e.g. Asking how to break into someone else's system is unacceptable, no matter what the local laws and customs are. | |
| Jun 21, 2011 at 20:01 | comment | added | Chris S | We're not the government, we don't have to assume innocence until proven guilty. If the questioner doesn't like it, they're free to find another website. This is a professional site before technicalities, process and procedure is at least as important as technical capability. | |
| Jun 21, 2011 at 19:21 | history | answered | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' | CC BY-SA 3.0 |