full-disclosure - Re: University of Washington Infected with GetMama 3000 files!

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Date: Sun, 06 May 2012 14:53:13 -0400
From: Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu
To: washington_u_getmama@...hmail.com
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: University of Washington Infected with
	GetMama 3000 files!

On Sat, 05 May 2012 19:33:52 -0000, washington_u_getmama@...hmail.com said:
> dearest FD the university of washington server has been feeding

*the* server, or *a* server?  precision in writing is often useful - I have
literally several thousand servers across the hall here.

> if they can not keep the servers safe from the public then what are
> they getting paid to do?

So in a bored moment, I took a look at the list, and noticed the following:

1) There's only a very limited number of upper-level pathnames:

/nfs/aesop02/hw22/d23/sauf/hubproject/ (493 files)
/nfs/aesop01/hw11/d04/geog/wordpress/ (605 files)
/nfs/aesop01/hw11/d08/rjsanyal/ (326 files)
/nfs/aesop01/hw11/d29/drobnygp/wordpress/ (658 files)
/nfs/aesop01/hw12/d56/dwsamplr/ (2 files)
/nfs/giovanni11/dw21/d98/uwfarm (1 file)
/nfs/aesop03/hw31/d24/cerid/ (1 file)
/nfs/giovanni13/dw23/d68/uwkc/phpBB3/cache/ (129 files)
/nfs/giovanni13/dw23/d95/rgeorgi/ (2 files)
/nfs/giovanni13/dw23/d15/ckwalsh/post_versions/  (50 files)
/nfs/giovanni13/dw23/d72/ukc/wordpress/  (308 files)
/nfs/aesop01/hw11/d04/geog/wordpress/ (1 file)

2) The pathnames certainly look like they have components that are probably
userids or department hames - and there's only 12 of them.

3) UW is like 30K students.  If out of 30K students, only 12 have gotten hit
with this thing, that's an incredibly *good* track record.

So this raises the question - what *exactly* does the UW AUP say?  This becomes
important, because we need to know that to resolve several questions:

1) If a user uploads infected files, or creates a publically writable directory that then
gets used to upload the files, is it the user's responsibility or UW's to clean up the
user's mess?

2) Does UW even have the *right* to take down a user file without lots of due process
just because it's infected with something?

At least in the US, an ISP has a "safe harbor" exemption under 17 USC 512 that
the ISP has no liability for copyright-infringing material uploaded by a user
as long as they respond to takedown notices.  And that's for files who's very
existence is *illegal*.  I don't think anybody on this list (with the possible
exception of n3td3v if he's still lurking) wants the ISP to have the right (or
worse, the responsibility) to auto-nuke files that are merely "likely
dangerous" - simply because "likely dangerous" is a very slippery slope indeed.
And since UW is a university, the whole "academic freedom" thing means it's
usually even tougher to take a user's stuff down without lots of due process.

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