@Anon
"That's a fairly lame argument. A knife is a very general tool, it has lots of applications from dressmaking to food preparation, but not all tools are like that. A nuclear bomb for example isn't general, it exists solely to kill millions of people, there's no other reason to have one. That's why there are so many people who object to nuclear bombs."
This is also a fairly lame argument, as it assumes that killing millions of people is inherently "bad". Suppose the millions of people are all carriers of a nasty strain of a virus. If these people are allowed to live, they will likely wipe out all human life. In this instance, it could be argued that killing those millions of people, perhaps with a nuclear bomb, is actually a "good" thing.
Furthermore, though nuclear weapons were designed to kill, there are plenty of reasons to have them. Many scholars believe the only reason the Western world and the USSR didn't get into an all out war, was that they knew they'd both be annihilated. It's the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. If the West didn't have nukes, while the USSR did, we'd all be speaking Russian right now. Or we'd just be dead.
"This software only exists to speed up the process of finding exploits, which is why one of the people quoted in the article objects to its existence."
Perhaps by running said tool on a product before its release, to find exploits sooner. You see, security experts will be able to find the exploits sooner as well, thereby giving the opportunity to plug security holes sooner. It's a zero sum game. All it does is narrow the timetable for both sides.
"Of course security researchers could use it to keep up with the "black hats", but that's the same sort of arms race excuse that was trotted out during the cold war to justify ever more vast arsenals of nuclear weapons. "We've got to have what they have".
And again, it's that very same principle that may very well have kept us all alive.
"The easier it is to find exploits, the more work developers will have to do to plug all the gaps in their security, and ultimately not all of them will do that."
So take issue with the vendor, not the tool maker. If Black & Decker makes a new tool that will make building houses more efficient, thereby reducing cost, but your homebuilder chooses not to use it. Do you blame Black & Decker, or do you blame your homebuilder?
Ahh, the glory of indefinite terms like "could", "might" and "may".
*cue infomercial music*
You could make over $6,000 a week working part-time from home!!
You could also make diddly.
*cue the price is right loser music*
If you say merely that "It COULD be that the overall effect of this tool is to increase computer crime, not decrease it" (emphasis mine), then you are simultaneously acknowledging that it COULD be that the overall effect of this tool is to decrease computer crime.