I hear what you are saying but there is a principle in science which states that whenever something undergoes "testing," that object itself is changed forever due to the introduction of such testing. In other words, for every action a subsequential reaction occurs. *The modification of POTCO's code was no different. This was because the results of the case study was publicly announced and it was "implied" that POTCO was so easy to hack into (drawing unnecessary attention towards the case study's findings). However, I do agree with what both you and @John Foulroberts say in that INTENT (and lack of personal responsibility) is key. To elaborate further upon this, let me include a snippet of a conversation which took place between myself and a well-known, POTCO hacker back in 2012 whom was solely responsible for the deliberate spreading of such modification of POTCO code:
"I understand where you're coming from and I understand you probably do not understand the significance behind my videos. Yes, I do post videos that in a way may harm the entire POTCO system. I know lots of people who have requested such videos I make. A lot of the Hacking Tutorials I create make people very happy. And again, I am only saying this from my understanding. A lot of people wonder "How do I do this" and "How do I do that" and I simply make the Hacking Tutorials that nobody has seen before. I can honestly say I do these videos sometimes just for the fame and popularity, excluding the Tribute Videos, those are for pure passion. I did not say I am not responsible for my videos, because I clearly am, I am just not responsible for the actions people take using the information in these videos. I cannot control the viewer and their actions. I feel by promoting these videos, in a way it harms and helps the POTCO Community. Not only does it give players a new thing to do in this boring world, it also grasps the attention of Non-Players who seek the opportunity to these same things, therefore bringing more business for Disney..."
I get what you are saying. However there is a very big difference in what DVLabs did and what the 2012-2013 POTCO hackers did, not technically but morally. DVLabs performed these modifications when the game was thriving, as part of a educational series where they reverse engineered many games to show the public, and the makers of the game, how easy it is. Most likely in the hopes to spur the game developers and future game developers to patch and put in security measures. They probably thought, well if anyone does use these methods Disney will surely patch it up in no time, because the game was thriving. Not only that but in every hack DVLabs showed their "tutorial" it was pretty complicated and required a lot of technical know-how, it wasn't a step-by-step tutorial that anyone could successfully preform.
The POTCO hackers hacked the game at a point where the game was going downhill. They kicked the man who was already on the ground. They shared their "code" with other POTCO hackers. They shared their "code" with POTCO players. They made it easy to do, just copy and paste from their .txt file and see what it does. Or watch their "step-by-step tutorial and subscribe for more content!"
It was to create drama, be popular, gain fame, have fun, be a troll, bribe people, hack people, feel like you know how to program, or do something no one else can do because you are the only person with this peice of code for about a day or two until you give it to your friend who gives it to their friends who does the same.
Clearly to me, such reverse-engineering did not help POTCO's fate. Those skilled individuals working for DV Labs (in addition to the above ex-POTCO player) have failed to see the connection between personal responsibility and educating the public. ~ If I am totally incorrect on this, then why did Disney fail to respond to such "common knowledge" as assumed that they would on POTCO's behalf?
Like I said DVLabs assumed, as I would assume of Disney or any major game company to do, that they would patch it if it became an issue. Because the game was thriving, this was back in 2008. For all we know they could have patched it we will most likely never know. It wasn't presented to a large group of POTCO players. Just the followers of their blog, and I believe they presented POTCO, and several other games that they reverse engineered at a convention. Now you could say, well it's on the internet so POTCO players could find it. Yeah, but it wasn't directly posted to the POTCO community plus
this hack never did become a problem, so Disney did not patch it.
POTCO hackers kicked the man while he was down. They knew that the game was going downhill. They knew that Disney would never patch this hack, they never did for Toontown. They posted it directly to the POTCO community. [insert paragraph 2 here.] Disney was done with the game anyways at this point so they did not patch it.