Indeed, it has always been shared, and players have developed stategies to deal with expected / unexpected situations. As far as I see things, nobody can actually prevent anyone doing something, I'll even stack a heap of missions for controlling factions on my T6 (65k rebuy) and poodle around waiting for the enthusiastic 'defenders' to blow me up, bang, 20 missions for their faction failed and negative effects from the murder...
Of course, being a vagrant I don't even have a home system or faction to vent frustrations on my actions, and if I choose, I'll never meet anything other than 'friendly' players... What is the benefit to a BGS bod in knowing that me, or any of my vagrant group are in the area, what are they able to do to stop us? Nothing, just do a little more grinding to negate our actions.