From: Karyn Pichnarczyk (karyn@sandstorm.net)
Date: Thu May 11 2006 - 15:07:53 EDT
With my reading of the slashdot article, using your example, he's what I see
that happened.
Starting at your "The door opens."
He seemed to:
Enter the store (one he used to work at)
Inform the store's customers that he was able to enter the store,
knowing this could cause harm to the store's reputation.
Moved unknown amounts of things around in the store, perhaps taking
or destroying some things (maybe, maybe not, noone except the
intruder knows for sure)
NOT tell the store owners that he entered the store, nor the authorities.
Left the store, and left the door closed in the same way it was when
he first leaned up against it: i.e. made it still look "secure", so
it wasn't apparent that anyone had gotten in.
After being caught, says he did all this to "prove that the store
was insecure". The question is, who was he proving this to? The
store owners (to help the store) or the store customers (to harm
the store)? Since he had told the customers, the only conclusion
was that he was proving this to the customers, in order to do harm.
My quickie opinion: the guy's a crook and deserves to be arrested
for what he did.
karyn
Ian Scott wrote:
> So, one night, I'm taking a stroll along main street in my town. I stop for a
> rest, and happen to lean up against the front door of a store.
>
> I notice the door gives a little bit - and out of curiousity and concern, push
> a little harder.
>
> The door opens.
>
> I immediately stop what I am doing, and notify the owners and the authorities
> that the premises are insecure.
>
> By the absolute legal definition, I have indeed "broke and entered" the
> premises.
>
> Where the hell is motive in all of this? I think that unless there was motive
> to do some harm, this conviction is utterly ridiculous.
>
> That's my quickie opinion on the matter.
>
> Best,
>
> Ian Scott
>
> On May 10, 2006 10:20 am, William Hancock wrote:
>
>>Hey there pen-testers, take this with a grain of salt, it just got me
>>excited. I am really interested in everyones opinion on the matter or
>>corporate responsibility and ownership.
>>
>><RANT>
>>In an article posted to slashdot today
>>(http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/10/112259&from=rss) a man
>>has been convicted of hacking when he casually and helpfully reported a
>>security vulnerability to the owners of a web site, in this case The
>>University of Southern California. It reads like it was some sort of
>>simple SQL injection and upon gleaning the information he reported it.
>>
>>What are we to do as a community I ask? We should we, the good guys,
>>who are paid for our knowledge and ability to exploit mistakes,
>>oversights, and weaknesses then professionally report them to aid in the
>>securing of information capital (or anyone who reports the flaw for that
>>matter) worry about prosecution. It lends itself to a forcing the
>>technical community to sit on their laurels and wait for the people who
>>don't report issues to exploit them. Further it sounds very clear that
>>had he not notified them, they would have never known.
>>
>>A security pro notices a flaw, checks to make sure he is not on crack by
>>'flipping a bit', deems the threat viable and is likely to be exploited,
>>notifies the owners, then get arrested and charged with unauthorized
>>access. We, as a or even The security community, should push
>>corporations, governments, and organized body's to take responsibility
>>and ownership of their problems. If they publish a site that is flawed
>>or exposing information then they are authorizing the retrieval of that
>>information. I'm not advocating that they laws should allow any jerk to
>>try and brute his or her way in to a public or private web site, but
>>come on.
>>
>>If someone leaves their wallet in the park with no guard or protection,
>>I pick it up and bring it back to the owner, the owner didn't want me to
>>have it but I brought it back to him. Why in the hell should I have to
>>go to jail for returning it to him, why should I/we be punished for
>>doing the right thing?
>>
>>I acknowledge this to be a rant but there must but some way to insist
>>that when people make something available to the public that it is their
>>responsibility to safeguard it and appreciate not persecute someone who
>>let's them know (for free I might add) that a weakness exists. This is
>>simple scapegoating, the University did something not advisable as a
>>good practice and instead of owning up to it they villafied a
>>professional pen-tester for offering valid advice.
>>
>></RANT>
>>
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Bill
>>
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-- Karyn Pichnarczyk Sandstorm Enterprises, Inc. ______________________________________________________________ Be advised that all electronic communication with Sandstorm Enterprises(R) is subject to monitoring by NetIntercept(R), our full-content network forensics analysis tool. More information about NetIntercept can be found at www.sandstorm.net. Please direct any questions to privacy@sandstorm.net. ______________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This List Sponsored by: Cenzic Concerned about Web Application Security? Why not go with the #1 solution - Cenzic, the only one to win the Analyst's Choice Award from eWeek. As attacks through web applications continue to rise, you need to proactively protect your applications from hackers. Cenzic has the most comprehensive solutions to meet your application security penetration testing and vulnerability management needs. You have an option to go with a managed service (Cenzic ClickToSecure) or an enterprise software (Cenzic Hailstorm). Download FREE whitepaper on how a managed service can help you: http://www.cenzic.com/news_events/wpappsec.php And, now for a limited time we can do a FREE audit for you to confirm your results from other product. Contact us at request@cenzic.com for details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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