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What liability do I have if I make an opensource piece of malware (registered under MIT), and then someone takes it and uses it to infect hundreds of computers? Could I be taken to court for that? Or are they purely accountable?

If I could be held accountable for that, is there a license which would prevent this?

The duplicate is incorrect, as that is about paid program (I believe) rather than an open source program anyone can use. It's not like I'm writing the malware and giving it to people to use, I'm releasing the source for people to take a look and see how it works.

feetwet
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levaa
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  • Search the site before you post; there are multiple answers for variants on your question. – BlueDogRanch Feb 12 '18 at 18:45
  • I don't see any reason to think that the open-source status makes any difference. – Nate Eldredge Feb 13 '18 at 03:56
  • Not like you are writing it for people to use is a fine line I doubt would hold up in a court of law. – paparazzo Feb 13 '18 at 14:39
  • "It's not like I'm writing the malware and giving it to people to use, I'm releasing the source..." - By releasing the source, you are also giving it to be people to use. – Brandin Feb 14 '18 at 09:48
  • "Malware" is not clear. For example, you could write a program that formats hard disks (erasing their data), and a user could use that to format someone else's hard disks (i.e. destroy a user's data without authorization). This is certainly not your fault. On the other hand, suppose you write a game that contains a secret program which runs in the background, copying itself to other computers on the network without authorization or action by the user. You are likely breaking laws in this case, even if the secret program does not actually do anything "malicious." – Brandin Feb 14 '18 at 09:53
  • @Brandin Yeah, the code is definetly illegal. I think it's best not to release or use it (not that I had any intention to anyway) – levaa Feb 15 '18 at 07:51
  • This question should be reopened because it sufficiently differs from, or is rather unaddressed in, the question it supposedly duplicates. Sanctioning the release of source code of a virus (1) infringes freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas that are not malum in se; and (2) would be as aberrant as criminalizing, for example, any circuit diagrams depicting so many batteries connected in parallel that they would blow up the circuit at issue. Source code is more educative than releasing it in its assembled & linked form. Criminals can smash routers and vandalize computers anyway. – Iñaki Viggers Jun 28 '18 at 12:26

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