Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:02:42 +0100
From: Timo Schoeler <timo.schoeler@...cworks.net>
To: n3td3v <xploitable@...il.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: n3td3v calls on month of bug campaigns to stop

n3td3v wrote:
> [introduction]
> n3td3v is deeply sad at the new trend of morally accepted blackmail by
> the security community, known better as a month of bugs.
> 
> sincere researchers are coming forward more frequently to threaten
> companies with a month of vendor bugs.
> 
> because they are known to be sincere they are morally left off the
> hook from what is known by n3td3v to be straight forward blackmail.
> 
> blackmail is illegal, for this reason n3td3v wishes to make the
> following recommendations:
> 
> [1]bug a day for a month campaigns are blackmail on the part of the
> researcher, all should be outlawed by government.
> 
> [2]n3td3v calls on the government to make it highly illegal and
> morally unacceptable to threaten a month of bugs for a vendor and its
> customers
> 
> [3]security researchers think its "fun" but all it amounts to is blackmail
> 
> [4]all blackmail attempts shouldn't be dressed up as harmless fun
> 
> [5]governments need to wake up and swiftly arrest those making month
> of bug claims in the future
> 
> [6]corporations and its consumers shouldn't be scared mongered and
> threatened by individuals
> 
> [7]researchers shouldn't use their real name or real place of
> employment and expect exclusion from legal action against blackmail
> 
> [8]researchers shouldn't be allowed to profit or gain career
> opportunities by such claims to action by the researcher
> 
> [9]researchers should be taken into custody, questioned and have their
> hardware obtained for forensic analysis before a month of bugs is due
> to start
> 
> [10]individuals threatening to carry out a month of bugs shouldn't be
> labelled as "security researchers" by the media and security experts
> 
> [11]such individuals should be clearly labelled as "criminals",
> "malicious attackers" and "blackhats", no matter what other "friendly"
> or "useful" research they've carried out in the past.
> 
> [media dork reference]
> http://news.com.com/2061-10793_3-6144833.html

there's one extremely simple solution: write good code!

furthermore, vendors who sell crap deserve to be blamed to do so. 
Mercedes-Benz' sales of their E-Class went down enourmously when the 
fact was known that it was extremely poorly engineered, especially wrt 
electrics.

no one could fill a whole month of bugs (a bug/day) when the vendor did 
good (!) work.

it's, again, a thing capitalism enforces. vendors sell immature 
soft-/hardware, and services, and let the customers do the beta testing. 
*that* should be defined illegal by governments! but guess what -- most, 
if not all of the western countries can be defined as fascist countries 
as (huge) corporations are the real entities in power.

that given, the guys you call 'blackmailers' are like Robin Hood. 
they're heroes.

(it was the same with brazil some months ago; they told the pharmacy 
corporations to sell their drugs for HIV infected people at a reasonable 
price to the brazilian govt, otherwise the govt would ignore patents and 
re-engineer and build the drugs themselves. again, the govt was 
perfectly right. however, pharmacy corporations' PR guys knew this and 
so they sold and sell the medicine to the price brazil was willing to 
pay...)

-- 
Timo Schoeler | http://riscworks.net/~tis | timo.schoeler@...cworks.net
RISCworks -- Perfection is a powerful message
Ex-ISP | RISC aficinados | Networking, Security, OpenBSD services
GPG Key fingerprint = l33t

What are you gonna do? Release the dogs?! Or the bees?! Or dogs with 
bees in their mouth so that when they bark they shoot bees at you? 
(Homer J. Simpson)

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