full-disclosure - Benign Worms

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Date: Sat May 14 21:30:24 2005
From: chromazine at sbcglobal.net (Steve Kudlak)
Subject: Benign Worms

The idea of a begin worm is a nice idea but doesn't work in practice. Oh 
I have known admins who let loose all sorts of automatic update process 
that were little different from worms and they regretted it. These 
people were far from middle school. and "millions and billions" sounds 
something Carl Sagan used to say. I do worry that this is another of 
those flame war topics that have been beat to death.

Have Fun,
Sends Steve


J.A. Terranson wrote:

>On Fri, 13 May 2005, k k wrote:
>
>  
>
>>There is debate surrounding whether releasing benign worms such as Nachi or
>>Welcha,
>>    
>>
>
>First off, lets get something straight: Neither of your two examples was
>in any way "benign".  Both of these cost carriers and their customers
>*billions* of dollars.  Many of us spent weeks with little to no sleep
>cleaning up the mess these "benign viruses" created.
>
>
>  
>
>>in general is ethical or not.
>>    
>>
>
>I don't know where you've been looking, but the only place I've seen the
>ethics of this "seriously debated" is in middle schools and the like.
>There is no serious question that this is a hostile act, and cannot
>logically be considered "ethical" under *any* conceivable circumstances.
>
>
>  
>
>>But network administrators can still
>>create benign worms for their need (not necessarily Nachi or Welcha) and
>>release them in their domain to patch systems.
>>    
>>
>
>You actually know admins that write viruses to do their patching?  Sorry,
>but I think you're full of shit.  If you're not, then these "admins" need
>to be immediately given a boot in the balls, followed by an unemployment
>benefit.  Why would an *administrator*, someone with FULL rights to the
>machine, use such a device to place patches???
>
>  
>