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Re: Tim O'Reilly on Randal Schwartz Prosecution



Vin McLellan (vin@shore.net) wrote:
:    I would also be very very surprised if Section 502 did not criminalize
: unauthorized acts to obtain and illicitly process an (ORA) encrypted
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
: password file, when those actions resulted in the perpetrator gaining
: access to another person's restricted data, including but not limited to
: his secret password and other access information.

Isn't the whole argument here about what a security consultant is
implicity "authorised" to do in order to complete the job.

I am not explicitly "authorised" to do most of the system security analysis
on this machine yet I run crack twice a year to discover stupidly simple
passwords so we can advise the users to be more aware of their own
responsibilities. I also sometimes run Satan against other machines which I
know have .rhosts files refering to this machine.

If everything that was not explicitly permitted was forbidden I would be
unable to do my job.


--
Geoff. Lane.   |   mailto:zzassgl@cs6400.mcc.ac.uk   |  http://gl.mcc.ac.uk/
CS6400 Admin, MCC, Manchester University, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!


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