Earlier quoted context omitted.
A better analogy would be if you see a bunch of people walking around in faulty stab vests, and you tell them that the vests are faulty before they are recalled and replaced by the company. In which case, telling everyone those vests are actually not going to stop a knife, is a very good thing to do. > I did not make the argument that obscurity is security... But that doesn't mean non-obscurity automatically improves…
Sure, we can run with your analogy. So you make everyone aware that the stab vests are faulty. One of the people you make aware of this fact is a thief with a knife, who previously wasn't gonna take the risk on robbing anyone, since he only had a knife (not a gun) and everyone was wearing stab proof vests. But now he knows, so he goes for it and stabs someone. You are partially responsible for this outcome in this hy…
Except his old knife he already had with him isn't made for exploiting the flaw in the vest, so it doesn't work. He needs to go home and build a new one, and the people in the mall can go home before he comes back, now that they know their vests are flawed. Otherwise, someone who comes in and is aware of the flaw when the users are not, can stab everyone, and they'd have no clue they were vulnerable.
In real-world terms, the kind of mass-exploitation that people use to fear monger about disclosure already happens everyday, and most people don't notice. The script kid installing a monero miner on your server should not be driving the conversation, it should be the IC spook recording a journalist/ dissident/ etc.
> Just that, in the world afterwards, you must take responsibility for everyone knowing, including people who did not know before and abuse that knowledge.
This is just a generalized argument for censorship of knowledge. Yes, humans can use knowledge to do bad things. No, that does not justify hiding information. No, that does not make librarians/ researchers/ teachers responsible for the actions of those that learn from them.