I have read all of your replies and will say that I see your point very clearly now. Altering even in the name of fixing is destructive and thus counter-productive to my origonal post. However, the situations in which I "fix it first, tell later" are on friends networks, where as the "notice, document, and report" is my more used method. What are your thoughts and opinions on someone who documents the system up and down, cracks root, documents all holes, procedure in which root was gotten, a document on how to fix the security hole as well as other possible holes... but not touch anything, even log files?

See, my friend method is different than my normal method of work. Sure I would love to setup my own little hack box, but unfortunatally I don't have the money for a 2nd computer, which even then would defeat my goal of helping make the internet secure by breaking it, and then showing people step by step how to fix it and prevent it again against people who _would_ destroy. Thoughts?