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Brian West Update

Posted by michael on from the following-through dept.

Concerned Onlooker writes: "Remember the story about how Brian West reported a security leak to a client of a competing hosting service and then was promptly arrested by the FBI? Well, as usual there's more to the story, as shown in this release that I got today from Sheldon Sperling of the U.S. Dept. of Justice. Sorry about the Word-generated HTML. It's just nice to follow up on what outraged many of us at the time...." West has pled guilty to a misdemeanor offense.

1 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. interesting... by espilce · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    `"it is important that web sites are secure from unauthorized access and that intellectual property is protected. Cyberspace will be a better place for all if such privacy and property rights are respected," stated Assistant United States Attorney Jeff Gallant.'

    Also from the release:

    "Using MS Front Page, defendant discovered a common security flaw between MS Front Page and MS Internet Information Server (IIS), the server software being run by
    PDNS."

    So tell me why Microsoft is not facing misdemeanor (or felony) charges instead of the user that was clever enough to discover yet another innovative, undocumented feature in the software..

    Since the DoJ is obviously committed to making sure "that web sites are secure from unauthorized access and that intellectual property is protected," they'd better throw the FBI at any average citizen that is smart enough to research the (in)security of the software that they use, instead of targeting the company that is more concerned with taking your money than making sure it actually works.

    --
    :q!