In some email I received from Marcus J. Ranum, sie wrote: [...] > There's always going to be a grey area in which legitimate > tools can be abused. This almost exactly aligns with the gun debate - > a long and tedious debate that I suggest we avoid in this list - but > similarly to the gun debate, society at large (legally and through > social pressure) defines what are "appropriate" tools and their > appropriate uses. It is not appropriate for me to own heavy > antitank weaponry; it is appropriate for me to own properly licensed > hunting and target weapons. It is not appropriate for me to use those > irresponsibly; it is appropriate for me to use them legally and > carefully at a supervised range. If, for a second I cross the line into > irresponsible use or inappropriate action, by threatening, endangering, > or even merely making someone uncomfortable, I have exitted the > grey area and entered into the wrong. This is a black and white > issue, and police, judges, and juries, are quite capable of > dealing with it. So it is with hackers. So are you suggesting that perhaps it is time software such as ISS, etc, to not only be made available with strict controls over which targets they can be used against (article about this went to bugtraq some time ago) but also be required for those buying the product/license keys in order to undertake such work ? I think this is almost a inevitable. I can't see why professionals would object to this - every `respectable' procession has some sort of official "badging" which is required before you practice in it. I'd go so far to say that if Joe Bloggs from the back blocks of Kansas bought ISS (who knows why) and got a license get for, say, 208.196.* and loaded it up on their new internet PC, you'd be about as happy as someone walking outside that grey area with a weapon in your personal space. (Well, ok, you probably pay someone who'd be upset about ISS being used like that, rather than you :-) Darren
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 14:05:30 PDT