It is a good analogy because thieves stealing from one house successfully gives them resources and incentivizes them stealing from the same area again.

And even if you remove the analogy, ShadowServer means good, but good intentions doesn’t necessarily make their action moral or legal.

Yes, compromised servers can be used by hackers as means to commit crimes. But when these groups scan the entire internet, they do cause harm as well, as shown in the original linked article. Much less harm than a black hat, but they still waste time and resources from innocent third parties.

It’s fair to ask if the harm they cause is worth the good they do.