From: Craig Wright (cwright@bdosyd.com.au)
Date: Thu May 11 2006 - 18:42:26 EDT
Unfortunately the articles have not made clear distinctions between the
people they are listing,
Bret McDanel was sentenced to 16 months,
Eric McCarty is arraigned for trial, not yet guilty but charged.
Both are separate cases although the report and mail to the list has
crossed the cases somewhat.
Regards,
Craig
-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Mayer [mailto:slamboy@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 11 May 2006 10:38 PM
To: bill.hancock@isthmusgroup.com
Cc: pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Pentester convicted..
not to nitpick or anything, but he hasn't been convicted yet. he has
been charged though. knowing the criminal justice system like I do,
it'll probably be another 2 years at least before a jury finds him
innocent :)
On 5/10/06, William Hancock <bill.hancock@isthmusgroup.com> 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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