But if you want to really see evil, take a look at the infosec community. "White Hat" is effectively equivalent to government contractor now. Infosec people readily sell 0days to governments or fronts for governments without hesitation. They unquestioningly collaborate with law enforcement on victimless crime cases, so long as the money is good.
Yes, this is a gross generalization. But any doubts of this generalization can easily be remedied by attending RSA or BlackHat and talking to the other attendees. CCC and Defcon may be a slight step up, but not by much.
In any other community this wouldn't be all that disgusting, except the fundamental roots of the community are ostensibly in creatively and intelligently circumventing authority - and now they're rarely more than collaborators.
Colbert, during his talk[1] at RSA:
If you're attending this conference, it is your business to prevent
security breaches, and that means learning enough about hacks,
exploits, and leaks to scare your clients into hiring you again
next year.
[very subdued "ha-ha-only-serious" laughter]
... so the el8 guys were right all along ?
RMS may be a bit eccentric, but he was and is right, I think he was just a man ahead of his time. (A/L)GPLv3 ftw.
Isn't it time to have something like the Hippocratic Oath that commits developers to some ethical standards and not engage in activities that may have negative consequences for humanity in general.
The problem with Snowden is not what he has done but what thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of others have not. And the way the freedom loving media, the EU and the US has treated him apart from being shameful doesn't help potential whistle blowers.
Given what we now know about the level of sophistication and ever growing number programs at play there needs to be more activism against the groups and individuals who enable this. And also more oversight of the level of involvement of security agencies and other vested interests in open source.