Slashdot Mirror
Blackboard Campus IDs: Security Thru Cease & Desist
Virgil was there two years ago when Dmitri Sklyarov was arrested and led away in handcuffs at Def Con 9. He's not in handcuffs now, but in speaking to me, he had to stop and think about everything he said, and every third answer was "I really shouldn't talk about that."
The DMCA is largely to thank for that. Section 1201 states that no one "shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work," and that no one "shall... offer to the public... any technology" to do so. Blackboard Inc., whose card system is called the Blackboard Transaction System and known to end users under various names, uses a network of card readers and a central server, and they communicate over RS-485 and Internet Protocol -- using, or so they apparently claim, measures that effectively control access.
For the record, none of what I learned about the Blackboard technology was from him or Acidus after the restraining order was sent. I spoke to other people, who have not been served with a restraining order. Google has a less enlightening mirror of the slide titles from this weekend's PowerPoint presentation and a more enlightening mirror of Acidus's "CampusWide FAQ" from last July. And, most enlightening of all, this mirror has an updated version with details on what they figured out how to do and what their talk was going to be about (click "CampusWide" for the text description, the PowerPoint slides, and Acidus's timeline of the last year).
At many schools, Blackboard's system is the ID: you swipe your card for your meal plan at the cafeteria, to get into your dorm, maybe even to get your final exam.
A swipe at a vending machine will get you a soda -- a money transaction from your campus debit account. When you use a swipe to do laundry and make copies, money has to be involved. Blackboard even notes that they can set up a merchant network on- and off-campus: "a cashless, safe, and secure way to transact on and around campus while offering parents the assurance that their funds will be spent within a university-approved network." (Emphasis added. Maybe readers who go to schools that use such a system can expand on how that system is used.)
The kicker, of course, is that this network is not very secure, or at least Blackboard doesn't think it's as secure as... well, as lawyers. One anonymous Slashdot submitter wrote that: "The authentication system is so weak that [Virgil and Acidus] have been able to create a drop in replacement for the CampusWide network debit card readers used on coke machines on campus."
Virgil couldn't provide me any details about what he had learned about the system. Based on the mirrors, it looks like a man-in-the-middle replay attack -- which is a pretty simple attack, repeating messages sniffed over the RS-485 protocol, or even over IP -- can have effects like convincing a Coke machine to dispense free product. Or, it's claimed, the attacker can create a temporary card, with no name attached, and free money in its account. Hmmmmm.
Or, more ominously, someone else's identification might be sniffed, and then replayed from a security terminal. If a thief gained entrance to a building by sending the message "open the door, my name is John Doe," the real John Doe might be sorely inconvenienced the next morning.
So, if you're a student at a school that uses Blackboard, do you feel more secure now that the DMCA has tried to stop you from learning about its security flaws?
If you're a parent putting money into a Blackboard-based debit account, do you feel more confident of its safety now that this information is ostensibly hidden?
This card system has been installed on many campuses and its roots go back almost twenty years. My guess is that replacing the card-reading hardware would be necessary to improve the security of these devices. Obviously, Blackboard would be hard-pressed to replace thousands of hardware devices at all its locations, even if they'd started in late 2001 when Acidus claims he called to tell them of the flaws he'd found (and "was blown off").
So, assuming that's not possible -- is the DMCA a viable tool to ensure security?
P.S. Virgil tells me that he has a good lawyer. They are scheduled to argue on Thursday that the restraining order not be made permanent. Slashdot will keep you apprised of what happens in our Slashback stories... stay tuned.
P.P.S. Update: 04/15 02:30 GMT by J : Now online are the restraining order, which just lists the six things that Acidus and Virgil are not to do, and the more detailed Complaint. Now that these are available, as Declan McCullagh points out, it turns out the DMCA was only in the lawyers' threatening letter and not considered as part of the Complaint itself. I'm not sure why it would be included in the letter -- some of the language of the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act is similar, and who knows, Section 1201 might be mentioned later on, as this case progresses. Maybe the lawyers are just keeping their options open. Meanwhile, I love this part of the Complaint:
"Mr. Hoffman openly acknowledges on his website that 'I am a hacker.' His website then defends the process of hacking. See Exhibit B."
Well, if you aren't even able to TALK about security flaws *Cough*First Amendment*Cough* they'll never get fixed. The DMCA again makes the net less secure instead of more.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
It is trivial to leak this kind of information. Walk into an internet cafe (or walk by any of millions of open 802.11b network) and upload the information to USENET. Problem solved.
The First Amendment most certainly does not grant you the right to say what you want, when you want, and damned be the consequences.
Now of course, I wouldn't have had this reaction if the company had taken steps working with the discoverers of the security flaw. If anything, they should hire/pay these researchers for their work, fix the problem, implement it, and then publish what went wrong. And who knows, maybe they even tried. I doubt it though, when a cease-and-desist can have the same effect.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
That freedom has taken a back seat to congress' lust for power and money.
We should look for other ways to take on the DMCA. IANAL, but the following link is to an interesting case, about fedral powers. I have some doubt, but maybe this is a method to bypass the DMCA.
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1260
I am very interested in what people think. Any ideas?
Ps: Why aren't techies lawyer? Oh, and why look at http://www.lp.org They hate the DMCA also.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Cease and decist letters get written when someone threatens anothers money making schemes. To fix the problem costs money, to scare individual X into keeping their info to themselves is much cheaper.
Say that a random person on the street finds a crack in a banks wall that allows intruders to get in, tack the cash, and run away. Should the person start holding seminars about how there's such a vulnerability, or should the person go tell the bank so it can fix it?
Initially, the later case seems like the thing to do. But what if the bank ignores you? Should someone be allowed to convey information about a problem with a system if the system controllers refuse to fix it? I'd still think not - it'd be one thing to state that there is a vulnerability, and that in good conscience could not state what the vulnerability is, and quite another thing to go explaining the vulnerability to everyone else.
Just my 2 cents, and as always, there's probably more to the story.
F-bacher
Where I went to undergrad there was a debit card system that was also unsecured (unknown company). This was actually a nice thing, as it effectively meant everything was free for engineering students (vending, meals, ?), with the rest of the student body picking up the tab. I was all for the poor protocols at the time. It?s the administration, not the students or parents that should worry...
And yes I realize this is immoral and wrong, it was more a thrill thing at the time.
Maybe these guys should have called Blackboard and informed them of the vulnerabilities, and worked with them to fix it, instead of taking the exploits into a public forum? If I am Blackboard, and there is a fatal flaw in my product, why wouldn't I want to fix it?
I don't mean to present an opposing viewpoint or anything. Wait... MICROSOFT SUCKS! That better?
If this article confuses you, don't worry. It was posted yesterday in a much clearer fashion.
You know a C&D letter may stop people from disclosing exploits, but will not stop people from disclosing that their are exploits. That's enough for lots of poor, enterprising college students.
A much better plan would of been to let these guys give their talk, to hire them, fix the problems, and them make a bundle in upgrades to existing customers. Come on, if some of these installations are 20 years old we're not talking much more then maintenance revenue. On the other hand system upgrades, especially when demanded by parents, can net a pretty penny. The colleges could have fund drives, hit up alumni societies, all the normal ways to get money when something unexpected walks through the door.
Instead the company gets to look like a fool that knows there are security flaws, aren't fixing them and instead are wasting money on laywers, get getting bad press.
Oh well, I guess there is no such thing as bad press. And that companies would rather think about prestige short term then a better product long term, even if the better product will get them more money.
=Blue(23)
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
So the legistlation in the US no longer supports freedom of speech? God bless America, again.
You should really consider switch to using GNUnet/Freenet solutions for distributing such information there since it seems the Government there is just too restrictive.
I bet the NSA & Co. are after me now for whatever reason they can come up with... truth hurts yea I know...
- Voice of Ambience -
- Voice of Ambience -
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
If hacking is outlawed (and talking about it), only outlaws will know how to hack.
So who do you get to sue if someone makes a dupe of your ID card and raids your campus debit account, or breaks into your dorm room? The school? The hacker? The company that sold the school the lame ID system they claim is secure but is not?
I would think the schools would like to know why sodas, meals, etc. are disappearing from their supplies. Hmmm.... This Coke machine is empty, but only 5 Cokes were recorded to be bought from it. Hmmm...
This is the worst kind of security through obscurity.
- Jasen.
chances are that they knew _exactly_ how bad the system was, and maybe just hadn't care when they first made the system, maybe thinking that it would be such niche system or so it wouldn't need to be secure, or maybe it was some other system adapted to use where security would have paid off..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So.
Instead of fixing the exploit in their keycard system, the company in question finds it easier to have their lawyers drop a house on the students.
Doesn't "Security through Obscurity" create an environment where persons with malicious intent are free to exercise it?
The students discovering the security hole = The Good Guys. The knowledge they posses equal a Munition (or, a firearm.) They were not planning to use their knowledge maliciously.
Essentially the DMCA has turned knowledge into a weapon to be regulated through the legal system. Just be careful what you know, because speaking of it publicly is becoming the 21st century equivalent of pulling a gun out of your pocket at the mall to discuss it's function with another gun enthusiast.
Of course, we all know the gun paradox. Seriously. Increasingly orwellian gun laws !=less crime. Criminals will always find weapons. On the electronic mean streats, crackers & hackers will always find exploits, but unlike the Good Guys, the Bad Guys won't go to a symposium to divulge the PROBLEM, embarassing the company into FIXING IT. Instead, the Bad Guys will EXPLOIT the FUCK OUT OF IT.
I'm not a philosopher, psychologist, ethicist or sociologist by profession, but perhaps the DMCA needs to be re-evaluated by a panel consisting of a few. Right now it seems to favor only the government and very, very large corporations. Oh, and it makes learning a criminal act.
Do you have a permit for your mind?
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Think of America as the 'politically correct' police state. While the jackbooted-gestapo isn't kicking the door down and beating you. . . (yet) . . . they are instead getting law degrees, dressing in nice suits and suing you. It's much more profitable. It ultimately achieves the same goal. You tend to keep your opinions / comments to yourself.
IANAL, but could someone sue the company for false advertising? If they say their product is safe and secure, but you feel it isn't and you are a user, then shouldn't your be able to bring a case against them? At that point, you have to present evidence for your claim and (assuming the court records aren't sealed) the exploit becomes public record.
What's silly is that Blackboard is, in no way, in the clear. They know this. The circumvention WILL get out, and it WILL spread, and Blackboard KNOWS this.
What they are doing is slowing the process down so they can create a fix, and implement it before everything goes nuts on tons of college campuses
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
One one hand, there is the party line that any security / encryption measure CAN be broken, so that social measures are really what's necessary to achieve desired aims.
On the other, we see slashdot outrage any time a social convention is established / followed that actually attempts to impose social codes of behavior.
(Side notes to all of this include the typical calling whoever developed the security mechanism a moron because of some obscure backdoor that took the investigator 6 dateless months to find but he acts as if it's so obvious.)
The fact of the matter is that the systems these "young security researchers" are ALL at about the state of the art for this stuff as evidenced by the fact that several companies are more or less doing the same thing. It's also evident that without their information being made public, the security systems do a reasonable job of protecting what they need to protect. It's also clear that there WOULD be a greater social benefit if their information was used to make the security systems even better.
However what's bloody obvious as well is that, given their userbase (students), that there is a greater societal harm in releasing the security flaws publicly at this moment. The DMCA, for all its flaws, was designed for exactly this situation. This is a correct application of the DMCA. The young crackers should negotiate a private deal with the providers for a fair amount for the information, intermediated by an intependent arbiter.
Yeah right, the DMCA will stick and hold for a long time to come. Lawyers are having a field day. Lawyer wrote the law and therefore they will protect the law. Even though the law sucks.
What will be the result? Easy illegal hackers who steal. The DMCA is setting up a black market of crime. Just like how people "steal" cable. And people will not consider it stealing because it is digital. Oh yeah forgot more lawyer work, to prosecute the illegal people. Can we say DMCA is a make work system?
The DMCA will be struck down once people in the mainstream realize it has no effect. This reminds me of the argument with strong encryption....
Add on the fact that governments these days do not care about the little person. Just the big companies with their lobbies....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I almost agree with this post. Almost.
Let's bring this into the physical world rather than the ethereal world of bits and bytes.
Stealing cars is illegal. I don't think there's any debate as to whether or not it should stay that way.
Figuring out how to break into cars and publishing that information is not illegal. (Well, it might be now undere the DMCA.) Especially if Ford makes a car that all you have to do is pull the handle four times real fast, or kick the corner of the door while pushing down the right spot, or some other reasonably trivial method to open a "locked" car.
Such information (how to, and how easy it is or isn't) on breaking into cars is valuable to consumers. They can choose to buy a car from a different manufacturer. They can install an alarm system. They can move to a safer neighborhood where they don't have to worry about people breaking into their car.
The same holds true in the digital world. If I as a consumer put some level of trust in a security system, I want to know how reliable that system is. In this specific case, if Blackboard's security is very weak, then I'll make sure never to have more than $100 in my debit account; as a school, I'll put cameras up to catch students stealing sodas with bogus cards, etc.
The bad guys out there WILL exploit any and all security holes they can find. As a consumer (whether a business buying an enterprise wide security solution, or a soccer mom hooking up to the Internet) it is in my best interest to know that people are out there actively trying to break anything that claims to protect me.
The act of breaking into someone else's machine, or using a bogus ID to steal products, is still illegal. And should be. But people need to know how easy it is or isn't to bypass any security measure so they can make an informed decision how far to trust that measure and what additional measures they may wish to employ.
- Jasen.
Tim Robbins and Martin Sheen seem to think so. As did the Dixie Chicks, but they learned better.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
You mean a company that creates a software system for financial and student transactions doesn't want an open forum on the security flaws contained in that software to be discussed on campus? What utter tyranny....
If I were a student on that campus I wouldn't want people openly talking about the system's flaws. I wouldn't want people cracking the system and tampering with any of my information that it contained - ESPECIALLY if this thing controls my meals, my dorm room and my exams.
Also, if I were the genius that found all of these system flaws, I would use it as a marketing opportunity to apply for a job at the company that wrote the software, supplying them with a detailed description of the problem and a proposed solution.
Why must this whole thing be so combative? Why is it so critical for this public forum to be held? If you find problems with the system, go to the company about it, not the public.
"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog!" - a dog
Seriously though. Does it ever occur to people that sometimes they have to FIGHT to get things their way? Not fighting in the sense of a debate-club discussion, but rather a nasty bar brawl; you are gonna get hurt a bit, but [hopefully] the other guy gets hurt more.
How did civil rights come about? Did Martin Luther King bitch to his fellow oppressed on the local bulletin board (ahem), write a congressman, and then go home? As I recall, he spent more than a few nights in jail, and eventually got shot to boot.
I'd rather be an insurance guy or something similarly boring then spending part of my life in a 4x6 cell, or even living in fear of same.
Well instead of a 4x6 cell you can have a 100x100 subdivision in some godless plastic suburb somewhere. You'll be safe there, have a fun life!
-----------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The trouble is, how can you win a false advertising law suit it no-one is prepared to do the research to find the product is insecure ?
Interesting, isn't it, in these days of terrorism paranoia, that laws like this ARE going to result in worse security ? Well worse security for the USA, relative to every other country in the world that doesn't (yet) have these sort of laws.
I've however pointed out that any idiot who was gonna do something in the dorms would do what everyone else does, and that is follow someone who swiped before you, and not swipe themselves.
It's not always that simple. You ignore the case where the person had no intention of committing any mischief when they arrived at the dorms. They showed up for a party, drank a few too many beers, got carried away, raped someone and ran. The next day, they're questioned by campus security and deny having been in the residence at all.
But their card was swiped.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
It would be interesting if the information made it overseas. So, has anyone thought of the fact that it essentially already is? If someone reads /., all they have to do is follow the link above to the mirror site that has this beauteous info. :)
jlk
Hello. Stupid. The corporation is using the law to prevent speech. The law is stopping someone from speaking. A prior restraint, stupid. This is the hallmark of a police state -- laws being used to silence the voice of individuals. Armed thugs will beat the shit out of him if he speaks -- they will attempt to kidnap him, imprison him, and extort money from him for this sin in the guise of arrest, detention, and fines by the police and court system. You have no idea what you are talking about, AC.
As a US citizen, I'm depressed (I should be outraged) at this sad state of affairs. However in-your-face this particular presentation was to be, the stated goal was to expose the flaws of the system through hand-on research & controlled experimentation. Research. It was NOT to distribute hacking tools for actual implementation to facilitate illegal or illicit purposes. But ballsy kids in an academic environment who want to improve the technology and processes that surround them? They're stymied by corporate protecionism ensconsed in federal law. That's sad. It's wrong, immoral, and ultimately ineffectual. But the real tragedy is that it depresses the level of creativity in academia and creates fear for those that think too hard.
As a security professional, the fact that any cheeseball company can successfully hide their shoddy product behind a federal law is an embarassment. It induces even more cognitive dissonance when I work with federal and state goverment security staff who are well aware of good security principles, and then think about laws such as the DMCA which are diametrically opposed to known-good principles of improving security technology and processes.
It's a lose-lose proposition: News of an exploit always gets out, and is propogated fastest within the community which has little fear of the DMCA. But invocation of the DMCA causes relatively-innocent people -- those that were willing to stand up and state their names -- to tremble and retreat. As I said: it's wrong, immoral, and ultimately ineffectual. I spend my days educating people about the dangers of security by obscurity, and exposing the risks associated with snake-oil solutions such as Blackboard's "secure" transactions. I'm doing my part to educate as many people as I can, but with Grand Moff Ashcroft at the legal helm of the country (and with US federal/foreign policy changed to match the prosecutorial principles of "pre-crime"), I'm afraid it's like spitting into the Mojave.
The first time that some predator clones the card of a victim (or a patsy) in order to gain access to a building and rape/murder someone, I wonder... Will the appropriate law enforcement be able to effectively investigate/prosecute such a crime if the computing research community is prohibited from supporting them? Would Blackboard be content to sit on known security flaws and let a patsy get convicted? Again: wrong, immoral, and ultimately ineffectual. It ought to be illegal to *withhold* security flaws, at least from those who depend on/are subject to them. Feh.
J
I think not...(*poof*)
You also don't die or suffer any physical harm, and with all the repeat "criminals" around, that ensures their future source of revenue. There is a far greater chance that you will repeat your offense if all you lost is some money (as opposed to your life).
The problem is that uploading the information to usenet is exactly what's going to happen. Corporate-types don't read usenet, but hacker-types do. What does that lead to? Some bored kid stealing all of my money, and only THEN is there a reaction from the company. I attend Cornell University, and I have to say, Blackboard is EVERYWHERE. We call it CornellCard. It controls all of the vending machines and meal plans. At least one door on each academic building and all the doors on the newer dorms are controlled by it. Not only can it be used to charge money out of our debit account (called Big Red Bucks), but it can be used to charge however much you want to your parents' bursar bill. The card isn't the only product Blackboard provides to schools. They also sell Cornell a web service called MyBlackboard. It allows teachers to set up websites for their classes. In addition to trivial stuff like assignments and lecture notes, the teachers use this interface to post test scores. Imagine all the havoc that could be brought upon this huge system simply because some exec decided it was more "cost-effective" to send out the attack lawyers than to fix their shoddy product.
The unfortunate thing is that this is exactly the kind of reaction that these stupid do-no-good laws will foster. It is unfortunate because when the evil person(s) who get their hands on these exploits use it to profit/wreak havoc/do evil/..., it will be at your and my expense, not at the expense of the company with the vulnerable product.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Indeed. If they'd just thrown the information onto usenet in the
first place, no lawyer action would have had any effect at all.
The problem is, people[1] who find security flaws don't generally
*want* to post them to usenet: they want to work with the vendor
and the security community to get the problems _fixed_.
So here's the question: will these sorts of responses from vendors
force the security community into just giving up on all pretenses
of working with the vendor and just leaking everything to the
general public immediately upon discovery? That would be bad for
all concerned, but it might be better than being lawyered to death.
It's pretty easy to arrange to get something posted to usenet
with a reasonable degree of anonymity, and there's absolutely no
way to suppress anything that has been posted to a big-8 or alt
group, short of destroying the whole planet. But I don't think
I trust the security of a product whose vendor is sufficiently
uncooperative as to motivate a discoverer[1] of a vulnerability
to do things that way.
Maybe people who discover such vulnerabilities should discreetly
communicate everything they know to some third party overseas
first before doing anything else...? But you still have the
problem that if you try to work with the vendor they know who
you are and can laywer you, and you can be held responsible for
communicating the information to the third party.
Ah... but what if the original discoverer remained anonymous
and communicated to someone _else_ who would try to work with
the vendor, and if that failed the original discoverer or some
third party he communicates with could release the information
to the security community (and, in the process, the general
public)? This would be harder for the discoverer, who would
have to anonymously contact a trusted third party in the first
place whom he would have to trust to make a good-faith attempt
to work with the vendor. But if the vendor tried to laywer
the non-anonymous person, they'd run into "I just found out
from this here anonymous email and was trying to work with
you; this leak must have been perpetrated by the evil person
who circumvented your effective measure in the first place,
probably the same dude who sent this email, which seems to
have come to me from an evil open relay in southeast Asia,
one of the same ones the spammers use to send me special
offers for reduced-price copies of your products, which they're
probably pirating. Gosh, you should really go after those
open relays, they're all kinds of trouble."
[1] Security people, I mean. I'm not talking about blackhats.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
" A corporation who distributes flawed merchandise or software has every right to tell me to be quiet."
but that doesn't mean you should have to respect that wish.
How many things only get better because someone talks to the press?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What they are doing is slowing the process down so they can create a fix...
WADR, I disagree.
In reality, they're probably running around in circles, not sure what to do. They may wind up doing just as you said, maybe to the point of backing off with the legal threats once they've got a handle on their technical and marketing response to the issue. I think they're scared and lashing out anyway they can.
The cat's outta the bag. Maybe they didn't expect this publicity from their legal actions but I can't believe that... and maybe the adverse publicity doesn't matter.
Dumb move in the long run or not, when they cool down, I bet they'll just stick to their present course. If they can stop wholesale dissemination of their technical flaws, perhaps dealing with the individual, rare case of exploitation (based only on the knowledge that there *are* flaws) can be done under the radar and on the cheap.
The first time someone uses the exploit to commit a rape or murder, the kneejerk reaction of the corportation will be to point at the students who knew the exploit and told officials about it as the scapegoats.
"They told us that we didn't leave our door locked, since naturally it was intrusive to check our door to see if it was locked (even though it affected the security of the people telling us) we told the students to scram and forbid them to tell anyone that our doors were open. Unfortunately yesterday we had a sad epsiode on campus where someone entered through our unlocked doors and commited a heinous crime, sadly the conclusion to be derived from this is definite - those infiltrators that went checking our doors must have relayed the information to their despicable accomplices. The University declines any assumption of guilt or failure of any kind. Thank you."
Face it, people suck and they don't ever stop sucking. The world is run by imbeciles to protect imbeciles, and the intelligent are their favorite food group unless they are creating more ways to create morons or joining the pack in their cannabilistic orgy of idiocy.
Wow, you have no idea what you're talking about, do you?
The problem with your examples (all of them) is that you assume that what is obscure remains obscure forever.
The problem with obscurity as a primary means of security is that too many people know things, and the odds on one person speaking out of turn or being duped into revealing a secret is non-trivial. Take, for example, the cases of Kevin Mitnick. He got a lot of his information about unlocked PSTN switches by calling up the maintenance centers for Sprint or whatever and impersonating a repair person in the field.
I'm sure the security at Fort Knox is well understood ("simple" circuits, cameras, and locks). If you ask me, the fact that it's a real fort with lots of troops around making it kind of hard to, for example, sneak in a truck or dozen that you'd need to cart of gold (it's kinda heavy :) ) has more to do with the fact that there hasn't been a break in.
The point of the anti-obscurity argument is that relying on obscurity as the main means of security a system is almost never effective against a determined attacker, because obscurity can be eliminated. Systems designed in the light of day, or at least with collaboration outside of a single interested entity, tend to be more secure because it eliminates those "in the know" short cuts.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
Not giving this talk could have saved the university from a rash of fraud.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
A corporation who distributes flawed merchandise or software has every right to tell me to be quiet.
I strongly disagree with this concept of licensing, legal or eula restrictions preventing a citizen from speaking his/her mind about what is (generally) a consumer product. A "free society" that cannot freely discuss the products and services it purchases and uses is not a free society.
"Don't Follow Leaders." Bob Dylan
My thoughts exactly (for quite some time now). The true criminals won't care it's illegal. They will get and USE the information anyway, leaving someone else to take the blame. (Honest officer, it wasn't me who swiped the card to break into the dorm and rob people.) And since the system is <sarcasm> so secure</sarcasm>, who's going to believe the victim? Of course, defending yourself without access to the information that shows how insecure the system really is is going to be a <sarcasm>cake walk</sarcasm>.
It's been my experience (and looking at history, I'm not alone) that trying to ignore a problem (bring in the lawyers!) only makes it worse and more expensive. Sadly, common sense seems so uncommon nowadays.
They might claim that my statements are not factual, libelous, and what not.
However, they shouldn't have the right to stop someone from proving facts about the company, it's products, services or dealings with others.
Of course, they try to contract you to be unable to do just that; did you have to sign an EULA for using your card?
In my (admittedly perhaps quaint) part of the country, cards are only needed to "check out" books (i.e. remove them from the building). You can still enter a library and access the books, even without a card. Thus, the technological measure does not effectively limit access.
And then there's the issue of who holds the copyright on the books. Unless it is a very special library (i.e. only contains books published by the school's press, itself) it is likely that almost all the books have no conditions for access imposed by their holders.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I sure hope this won't diminish the spirit of the young researchers out there. These kids are building our future whether we allow them to or not. Stifling their growth will only give us a dysfunctional future.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Maybe that's how police states work in your native, ignorant, Hollywood view of the world. In real life, police states don't usually bother with beating people up--it's way too much effort--and it's not necessary. They control people through implicit and subtle threats to their liberty, livelihood, and privileges, as well as similar threats to their families. They only resort to force when people absolutely don't comply--but so does law enforcement everywhere.
You don't agree with the party line? Sorry, you or your kids can't go to college. You don't return from your trip abroad? Well, to compensate the state for your misdeeds, your home will be confiscated; too bad about your family. In some areas of US law enforcement, it's getting frighteningly close to that (drug seizures, computer seizures, etc.).
Police states aren't anarchies. They operate orderly and according to laws, they just happen to be laws that limit freedoms excessively. And it's very easy to move from the rule of law in a free society to the rule of law in a police state.
No, they just take enough money from you that you and your family become destitute - and heaven help you if you have any conditions that require health coverage that you can no longer afford... wait, so if you have a serious condition, you do die. And possiblly dependant family members. Whoops.
"A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the
last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security
or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus-
sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a
premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fal-
lacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more
than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew
a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them-
selves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in what-
ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto
been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know
this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to
apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to
give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too ear-
nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better
for all parties."
-- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks,
published around 1850
There's a reason why these security-types choose to disclose this stuff. Let's use an analogy here. Let's say the turnstiles in the subway (you know, the little things where you put the token in, and then it makes the little bar let you through) will just let you through without a token if you give them a fairly solid nudge with your thigh. This is because the turnstile company is making shitty equipment and charging a bundle for it. As a society, we can let the turnstile company slap lawsuits on anyone who is talking about the crappy turnstiles, or we can force them to fix the damn turnstiles. Clever people will figure it out for themselves, regardless of whether it's disclosed to society. Would you rather people stealthily stealing trolley rides forever? Or would you rather have the company who made the shitty turnstiles take the beating? Sure, most companies want to be able to make crappy security and get away with it. They want to be able to threaten people who will make it difficult to sell crappy security, just like the rapist might like to be able to intimidate his victims into silence. Sure, when it hits the news that you can just get into the subway by pushing on the bar, no one's going to pay until they're fixed. Sure, if they hold this press conference, people are going to be stealing cokes (and worse) left and right. However, that's not my problem. It's the problem of the universities who didn't buy a secure product, and the manufacturer that didn't make a secure product. None of that is any reason for me to give up my right to freedom to peacably assemble, and freedom of speech. You can either preserve the ability of corporations to hush up flawed products, or you can preserve our constiutional rights. It's as simple as that.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Could you, in 24 hours or less, work out whether you (as conference chair) should go ahead with that seminar given that you probably don't know what the participants in question were doing?
What makes you think they did not know EXACTLY what they were going to do? What makes you think the almost 100 times Blackboard hit our website did not warn us? What makes you think that we were not prepared as hell?
With that said, I think it was still a shock, but we come prepared every year. We had well over 10 separate internet connections. If $#1t hit the fan we would have been streaming it live. If some other event "prevented" us from posting the data we would have gotten around that also. As it was, somewhere around 5 minutes after the rant/talk at the con started, we had relevant information sitting in about 5 continents, on at least 15 webservers I knew of. Not counting the untold numbers of relays the information recieved.
Looks like a cheap but effective maneuver to me.
It was very cheap on the lawyers' part. I think they doubted our resolve, our commitment, and our loyalty to our ideals. We had at least a few traitors in our midst, but the funny thing is they did us NO irreperable harm (*watches feds come in and raid me now*) thus far.
I think it was a bluff, but it may or may not remain that way. Keep in touch and stay updated.
support our troops!
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" -- George Orwell
Perhaps a better approach would have been to engage the interest of a local TV news station and arrange, with cooperation from campus security, a live broadcast of a break-in on a Coke machine. If the guys were suitably disguised (ski masks?) and the details sufficiently fuzzy to prevent casual replication by "script kiddies", I'd think they might get away with it. Especially if the news crew leaned heavily towards "the security provided by the cards is clearly crap", instead of "look what these hackers just did".
They wouldn't even have to name Blackboard specifically, just mention that the system so easily cracked is used by major Universities to "secure" thousands of devices, ranging from Coke machines to the girls dorm...
A corporation is preventing you from doing something, which is their right according to law.
When common sense is outlawed, only outlaws will have common sense.
deus does not exist but if he does
"Since when does revealing such information about a flawed product that would allow anyone to exploit that flawed product to engage in illegal activities equate to "rights"?" When it has a profound influence over what products I choose to buy. I'll be damned if I'm buying the inferior product if I know about it. If you wish to use lockpicks as the example, no problem, I'm game for it. I own not one, but TWO sets of lockpicks. ( I wore my first set out ) I am quite proficient with them. I understand how locks work and why some locks are better than others because of my study and use of the lockpick. Knowing how the criminal mind works is the first step in defending yourself or your property against one. Do you actually think that by imposing laws / limits on distributing this kind of information is going to make you and / or your valuables any safer? Do you not perhaps think that if you had the same knowledge as I about locks, that you would be more careful in your choice of locks to protect your things with? You know the locks they advertise can take a bullet and stay locked? ( Won't name any names here. . . you know why ) You're probably thinking " That's a pretty secure lock. " Couldn't be further from the truth. If someone actually bothered to use picks on it, the average lock of that type, can be bypassed in less than thirty seconds on a very bad day. ( My record is less than ten seconds ) If this information was publicly known, they probably wouldn't sell many of those type locks now would they? This is why this information needs to come out. The average person simply accepts what they see / hear as gospel and that's it. While the knowledge of lockpicking can be used for ill purposes, the same knowledge can be used to defend against it. No one is condoning the theft of anything, but an informed user is a much tougher target than an ingorant one. Just because I have the know how and tools to commit a crime, does not mean I will. ( Haven't as of this writing ) Yet, because of human nature, someone will surely take up the task for me. You have a choice, you can either be a victim of ignorance, or not. Condoning the laws that keep the public ignorant, effectively puts them at the mercy of those who will use this information to further their own agenda.