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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: Cisco IOS Exploit Cover Up
> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of James Baldwin > Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 10:36 AM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Cisco IOS Exploit Cover Up > > > > Lynn developed this information based on publicly available IOS > images. Well, there is this long legal license "agreement" you have to click to agree to before you download the images (and I think it is included with the hardware you unpack too). In there somewhere you do agree not to reverse engineer the images (I actually read it all once a long time ago). As to whether that is enforceable, that is for a court to decide. > There were no illegal acts committed in gaining this > information nor was any proprietary information provided for its > development. Reverse engineering, specifically for security testing > has an exemption from the DMCA (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/ > DVD/1201.html). As I understand it, it is still unsettled case law as to how that clause should be interpreted. It is generally considered a good idea to avoid being the test case for such lawsuits (unless you have deep pockets to afford the best lawyers money can buy, or at least better than what your opposition can buy). > That being said, what information is he not supposed to have? > All the > information he had is available to anyone with a > disassembler, an IOS > image, and an understanding of PPC assembly. Perhaps, as in at least some companies interpretations of the DMCA, these are software equivalent of the crime of "Possession of burglary tools"? The US legal system is not as clean nor clear as one might like to hope. But the process will be followed, and we will see what happens. And if the result is "bad", we can change the laws. Gary
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