Ethical Use of Software Vulnerabilities

[SamC]

Originally Posted by chris31

Im not sure FIRST has a stance because this doesnt have anything to do with them. Obviusly the spirit of FIRST doesnt support stealing. Obviuosly its not legal to crack it and use it. That doesnt stop me from trying to reverse engineer regsitration systems. However I dont publicly publish the information or use the software. If you are reverse engineering it for learning then ok, but if you are doing it to get the software free then no. If you like the software pay for it or find an open source verion.

That was pretty much the spirit of my question/topic. Is it ethical to even try and do it? Obviously if I somehow find a way to crack one of these systems, I am not going to try it. But, if I somehow stumble upon a site that displays one of these flaws while searching for a tutorial on web design, is it OK to simply try it? I guess, what I mean. is even though it is considered stealing, is it illegal as it is a flaw that the company has produced?