Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 06:12:54 +0100 (CET)
From: Goebbels Amadeus <paul.goebbels@...email.hu>
To: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Hell Camp: A Terrifying Story of Lies and
	Middle-Men

Despite the misleading subject of my e-mail, I want to
bring to attention an important topic which hasn't been
discussed enough among the security industry: the exploit
and vulnerability research market.

Since this might be a vastly secretive community, I will
introduce
some of the members of this dramatically disturbing tale:

Since a few years ago, few companies emerged, who offer
rewards for exploit information and vulnerability research.
In the beginning, only iDefense (US-based) openly disclosed
its activities.

In the last 3-7 years we have seen ZDI (TippingPoint, now
3Com and soon its Chinese major shareholder..), WSLabi (the
failed attempt on creating an auction market model for these
sales) and Netragard (the old DMCA publicity stunt SNOsoft).

Now I'll start telling a tale of distrust, lies, middle men
and other creatures of the infraworld...

Once upon a time, there was an increasingly powerful work
force capable of crafting weapons which existed only in a
digital world. This force didn't have a name. They didn't
pursue certifications. They were anonymous. But some realized
they also had the power of influencing people, controlling the
flow of information from anywhere at any time. Humanity has
seen for ages how the power of controlling information can
take down whole nations. Nowadays, in an open and free market,
the corporate world is nothing but a battlefield.

There's no crimson tie. No blood escaping the bodies of its
soldiers. The soldiers are John Does, fighting for a decent
paycheck at any cost, selling out their spirits and time for
the corporate machine. Selling out their comrades and dignity.
Losing the values, principles and matter that make them human.
Unknowingly, they are becoming mere tools of few individuals
who have a neverending desire for fame and wealth.

Have you ever considered your future in their hands? You've
been working for 50 years, your liver and kidneys start failing,
creating visible symptoms, stains in your skin. You can't handle
life in the same way anymore. For what? What have you done in
those 50 years but serving another man to become more wealthy
and over powered. The approaching day of your death and its
mere vision strikes you like a burning iron blade.

In this New Age battlefield, you can make a difference. A
talented youth started emerging and dedicated passionately to
fulfill its curiosity. Day after day, spending countless hours
in front of a machine. Understanding it's inner design and
details, breaking it apart and reassembling it the way it wasn't
meant to be assembled.

Some others dedicated painful discipline to physical work and
trained themselves for achieving perfection in both intellectual
and physical matters. Others fell in the way and never made it
to the final round.

After realizing they could not let the corporate world exhaust
them, they tried another way. The emerging market of digital
ammunition seemed to be a potential solution for their problems.
But, unbeknown to them, they were wrong. They didn't think at
first glance of the impossibly huge amounts of lies and fallacies
they were about experience. Because in a world where you can
claim something while denying your obligation to prove it, the
only power that is left is that of common sense and intuition.
The ability to sense the deceitful and know the truthful.

Once day, our John Doe decided to approach an independent digital
weapons dealer, looking for better offers than those coming from
more established business men. He knew that more then business men,
they were only middle men. After numerous experiences with these
little twerps, he realized they were also abusing their condition.

John was also especially disappointed with the fact that in the
world of digital ammunitions, there's no real way of providing the
goods without turning them instantly useless and vulnerable to abuse.
John knew that these middle men were taking cuts far higher than
their alleged 10 to 15 percent of the sale. How could John prove it
otherwise? There was no way of ensuring that their contacts were
getting the very exact figure John demanded.

Despite this fact, John also realized that in this market of smoke,
the seller is not supposed to set the price of the goods. These
middle men, in their great mistake of thinking that wisdom and
knowledge are the very same thing, wanted John to believe that
they were the ones who set the price of the goods.

John's disappointment was growing to incredibly high stakes: "As a
child, whenever I tried to tell the candy shop clerk that the
chocolate bars cost as much as the peanut butter ones, he simply
tried to smack my head down. I wasn't supposed to even swap the
labels in a failed attempt to fool this man, who had been making
candy bars for more time than I was actually able to barely say
my name."

John had been crafting digital weapons for so many time, with
such a high talent and effectiveness, that he was much less
dispensable than this middle men. His personal background, of an
extremely tough childhood full of misery and hostility, also
gave him the necessary wisdom and experience in this world for
quickly spotting the weaknesses of these ego-crazed men. Their
weakness lies in the fact that without John and his comrades,
they have no business. They lack far more than just knowledge.
They lack wisdom, passion and truly devoted dedication to whatever
they do. Sooner or later they will make the same mistake of other
weapon dealers: getting killed with their own goods.

Hypocrisy among these poorly educated middle-men was so high,
that they resorted to low tricks and ridiculous attempts to gain
the trust of people like John. They went as far as insulting the
intelligence of those who provided them with the goods they are
unable to produce themselves. No matter how hard the tried, it
never brought anything back but silence. The silence that can be
clearly understood as a fully precise signal of genuine despise.

The fundamental error behind their approach is that trust can't
be gained for cheering, boosting the ego, claiming great benefits
and wealth. Trust is something sculpted in hard rock, taking years
to become an admirable master piece. It doesn't come attached to
an email.

At the end, John and his comrades found out that wasting their
time with these miserable beings was far less than fruitful. It
was exhausting them as much as the corporate world did. They
realized that any day above ground is a good day. Let the snakes
change their skin and show their true colors. In the desert,
being unable to match with environment has deadly consequences.
It might take years, or decades, but time will set them all where
they belong. Life does not forgive and everything has come to an
end... because they lack of patience, the end will approach their
nefarious activities sooner than they ever thought and John and
his comrades will be free again.

And this tale has to come to an end itself... the end of a
story about middle-men and their madness.

Time's striking force.

- Paul Amadeus Goebbels

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