How do you feel about sharing your knowledge?

[proxx]

It does lead to development, be it good or bad.

Development is not subject to good or bad, thats the beauty of science.

[fuicious]

Development is not subject to good or bad, thats the beauty of science.

My mistake. What I meant to say is that sharing might have good or bad conseqeunces but it leads to development.

[0E 800]

The latter: No, I doubt that. This is just another piece of crap taking time away from malware analysts that we would rather spend on creating these solutions you are talking about. There is nothing new in that malware, nothing we don't already know. Yet we have to spend the time to create a static signature in case someone wants to use the plain malware (which no one does).

My apologies, I was speaking of malware in general. How we adapt to adversity.

In my mind I compare it early civilization. Think of a clan of cavemen that invented a stick or club to be used in a maleficent fashion to steal and harm cavemen from other tribes.
The weaker tribe in turn invents a club with a stone at the end in order to defend themselves.
Kind of a tit for tat that continues until we destroy ourselves.

Regardless of a persons morals or ethics, motivation inspires innovation.

There is nothing new in that malware, nothing we don't already know. Yet we have to spend the time to create a static signature in case someone wants to use the plain malware (which no one does).

One day there will be a malware solution that will make that an obsolete issue. I guess it depends on the demand for it. The more the variety of the same malware, the more the demand for a quicker solution.

[Kulverstukas]

Getting back on topic - how I feel about sharing information. Well I am an open person, and that sometimes hurts me, because of the willingness and excitement to share, I may sometimes share a bit too much. Yes, sharing certain information can be harmful more than do any good. Or it may do good for a period of time until it spreads.

If I have something cool, be it my own creation or something I found, that no one else has, but there's no direct or good benefit for myself, I am willing to share with anyone. However, based on the importance of it, I may decide to share it with certain people, or a certain group of people (usually it's the VIP section).

Most of the projects I make, are all opensource or otherwise free (unless it's a project I was paid for), because there's no benefit for me to lock it down. But eventually I might share the project anyway...

Now why am I doing it - is simple. I feel good about it. I have my own blog where I publish it all first, there when I write and share, I get no direct benefit at all, my blog isn't a popular place, I probably get one or two lonely readers per day, but I don't care about it, because it's for people that are searching. It also acts as a reference for myself in the future, I learn to write fluently, I deepen my knowledge by writing. And ofcourse that's how you create a portfolio.

IMO, when sharing something, you need to evaluate if it's worth it. Obviously if it's like "hey people look at this really cool search engine I found: http://google.com" then it's useless and sharing it is stupid.

[TheWormKill]

I thought I'd add some of my thoughts on this, since it directly affects me.

I try to be a productive person, which means that I write code, work on projects, configure things and do all kinds of tinkering.
But when you do some of the above, you want feedback. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to improve what you do. This
leads to you sharing your work, your findings and making others understand what you think, with the purpose of generating
some benefit for everyone, including you, since you get opinions, ideas etc. back. And of course, everyone loves positive
feedback.

Now, how do I make sure that my sharings are not abused? I don't directly. I just share stuff that can be used and is useful,
but without spoonfeeding. If you just outline your thoughts and assume a certain level of knowledge, people from who you
can benefit will still "get it". Whereas others will have to develop their skills (and mindset) until they fit in the first category.
And those people tend to be mature/intelligent enough to handle your stuff well.

[th31nitiate]

SHARING IS CARING


I believe that it is good to share, but that people should not mistake sharing with charity. sharing is a process that takes place between people belonging to a certain community or people that share common interest's. When you share knowledge with people you must also get something in return although not straight away but in the long run or at some point in the future. You must also learn to give credit were credit is due(Also giving something in return).


Personally i have been a situation recently were i got into a fight with a friend of mine because of this same issue believe or not. In this situation i was in position where i was the one who was meant to be sharing information but i choose to with hold the information last min. Some would consider this a dick move but then the thought came to me information is power. I have shared data with the same person before, nothing major(the most common torrent on the net) and i caught the guy trying to sell to a class mate (who was my friend and his) in uni who did not have this knowledge. I ignored this little scenario and after 6-7 months i gave him everything i ever downloaded at the time, which was quit a lot. The thing is there is no way he could of used all this yet and but it supplement his learning for a while and would give him the edge over everyone else. The new knowledge that I had acquired was far advance beyond the level that he was at and beyond my level too.


I tried to use the new information I had got to try get him to share some of his stuff. which of course he did not.


I hope you can see the point i am trying to make here, which is when you share you have to share with the right people that can give something in return, if you are sharing with someone who has nothing to, share a little. Teach a man to fish, wait to see if he fishes for him self and wait to see if he will share some of your fish with you. either way he is either lazy or he is fishing but not sharing his fish with you. Parasites are a real thing.


Some people would turn around and try say to you that you are not sharing because you afraid they will surpass; that's pure and complete utter bullshit, tell them the internet exists you have the power to surpass me anytime


If you are a nice person in general people will try to manipulate you using words, so you really have to watch out for that, share on EZ so that we can grow together to become stronger together as a community.

[fuicious]

@th31nitiate thank you for the response. I have to correct myself on this one. We're all part of some community in a way. Some communities require more intellectual interaction than others. I believe that's how it is.
I understand the situation you were in. You've shown us an example of how someone's ignorance can make you not want to help him. Not just does he earn money from what you've told him, he takes all the credit for it as well. Shitty feeling.


I would like to add something positive about sharing. Don't know if it applies to everyone, but I've certainly noticed that it does to myself. Contributing by sharing my knowledge gives me a sense of purpose. The thought that what I do might be useful to someone motivates me to keep learning and improving myself. It's kind of hard to do something for a longer period of time if there's no one around with mutual interest with whom you can talk about it. At least for me it is.