On the other hand, I don’t think I quite agree with your word substitutions, especially in response to HS’s statement. I think the situation is that it would be “best” if the de-anonymization techniques were never discovered, but given that we cannot hope for that possibility, the next best thing would be to discover them as soon as possible so that we can start working on the defenses and so on. As you can see, this is not at all analogous to assassination.

I feel that philosophy occasionally degenerates into word-play :-) I wonder how philosophers decide where to draw the line.

Last is something that HS brought up. He stated that, “You can’t prevent the information from ever coming out. So refusing to do research on the grounds that you hope it would never be discovered is misguided.” Let’s run this argument again with some word substitution: “You can’t prevent Mr. X from being assassinated (he’s just so unpopular!). So, refusing to kill him yourself is misguided.” As you can see, there’s a something virtuous about keeping your hands clean. You shouldn’t do something just because you know that if you don’t, someone else will instead. There’s your own morality that you need to be worried about! Anyway, you see this sort of argument all the time. It’s of the form: It would be very hard to stop X, so we might as well just legalize X (and/or do X ourselves).

In any case, I think a good thought to end with is the following: Free speech is a good just like any other good. It must be weighed against other interests, and then we must decide how important to us it is. Once this is decided, then the appropriate restraints must be applied to it. Although I do agree that legitimate academic research is permissible, it would be a mistake to think that free speech should never be restrained, and that we should ignore the question of morality when it comes to research.

Now, although I do agree with your conclusion, I’m not so sure about some of the reasons you give. At one point you say that the question is irrelevant to you because, “I do not recognize a moral question here, and therefore it does not affect what I choose to work on.” The response is, of course, “But, should you recognize a moral question? And should that affect your work?” I believe that the answer is, “Yes, there is a moral question here, and yes it should affect your work, but it turns out that almost all of the time, the answer is: Research is permissible.” Why? Because it would be very hard to demonstrate that academic research does any direct harm to a specific person’s or group’s rights.

Second, as a philosopher, this sort of thing irks me: “Part of the problem with allowing morality to affect the direction of science is that it is often arbitrary.” Although this is a viable, albeit unpopular, philosophical position, my problem is that people don’t usually recognize the consequences of such a statement. Should we excuse Hitler because “Morality is often arbitrary”? Most people shy away from this sort of ethical nihilism when confronted with questions like that. Or perhaps you want to say that we should withhold judgment about certain research topics because the issue is so difficult. But once again, I ask, “Should we withhold the judgment of Hitler because ethics is hard?” Admittedly, research and Hitler are two very different things, but the point is that we shouldn’t shy away from ethics because it’s difficult, and saying that ethics is arbitrary entails some things that seem obviously false to me.

Last is something that HS brought up. He stated that, “You can’t prevent the information from ever coming out. So refusing to do research on the grounds that you hope it would never be discovered is misguided.” Let’s run this argument again with some word substitution: “You can’t prevent Mr. X from being assassinated (he’s just so unpopular!). So, refusing to kill him yourself is misguided.” As you can see, there’s a something virtuous about keeping your hands clean. You shouldn’t do something just because you know that if you don’t, someone else will instead. There’s your own morality that you need to be worried about!

Anyway, you see this sort of argument all the time. It’s of the form: It would be very hard to stop X, so we might as well just legalize X (and/or do X ourselves).
In any case, I think a good thought to end with is the following: Free speech is a good just like any other good. It must be weighed against other interests, and then we must decide how important to us is. Once this is decided, then the appropriate restraints must be applied to it. Although I do agree that legitimate academic research is permissible, it would be a mistake to think that free speech should never be restrained, and that we should ignore the question of morality when it comes to research.

1) Is the information you’re trying to discover something the world really needs to know?

2) Is your quest for understanding something rooted in a good cause?

I think the first question is irrelevant.
I know “Information wants to be free” is cliched but its also true. You can’t prevent the information from ever coming out. So refusing to do research on the grounds that you hope it would never be discovered is misguided.

The second question is more personal to the person doing the research:
Would you be comfortable doing research on how to make an air-borne vector for a contagious fatal disease?

Sure, some good *might* come out of that research and someone will figure it out if you don’t, but I wouldn’t want to do it anyway. I don’t want my name on that paper.