Arrest in Cisco Code Theft

Kozar_The_Malignant writes "The BBC is reporting that an arrest has been made in the case of the stolen Cisco code that was posted to the internet last May. Approximately 800 MB was posted to a Russian security website. No name has been released and details are rather thin."

Comments

It always seems...

[flewp]

to be younger people who get arrested for these kind of acts. I'm reffering to things such as code theft/release, warez, writing worms, viruses, etc. Is it because the the younger ones aren't as bright and therefor don't cover their tracks as well? Or is it because as you get older, the appeal of these kind of things drops? A combination of both? Something else? I would have to assume it's a combination of both, but I have no idea.

Re:It always seems...

[shawn(at)fsu]

In criminology (my degree) it is called "aging out"

The older you get the less likely you are to comit a crime. Why it is is not so clear, one theroy says it is because you have more to lose (money, freedom etc) another says you have more reason to stay out of jail (children wife/husband etc), there are other reasons why this might happen but these are the two I remeber.

Re:It always seems...

[vsprintf]

Is it because the the younger ones aren't as bright and therefor don't cover their tracks as well? Or is it because as you get older, the appeal of these kind of things drops? A combination of both? Something else? I would have to assume it's a combination of both, but I have no idea.

I doubt that it has to do with intelligence. I'm living proof you don't get any brighter as you get older. :) Why is it usually the younger ones who vandalize cars and graveyards and toilet-paper houses? I'd guess it's a combination of that teenage rebellion thing, a need to mark territory, and way too much time on their hands. Once you have a life and you're doing something constructive, there's little drive, interest, or time for being destructive.

I have IOS 11.3 source. Where is FBI?

[puzzled]

I've got and have had IOS 11.3 source sitting here for about two years. I kept notes on the dork who gave it to me. I contacted Cisco asset recovery, whom I had worked with before, and they got me to the IP guys. I've been waiting and waiting to be interviewed and nothing happens ... maybe they don't care about old school code or something, but I found the lack of interest somewhat strange.

Aww Poncho!

[samberdoo]

I don't see how this is going to keep people from hacking Cisco products. The only difference here is the code was "published". From what I have been told the code has been available in the "warez" community for years.

Oh my god!

[Anonymous Coward]

They caught Simeonoff from Varna Hacking Group! The greatest hackers in the world got arrested?!?

Re:"Code theft"???

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, legally speaking, theft is generally defined as:
"Unauthorised taking or use of someone else's property with the intent to deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use."

If you accidently grab the wrong coat while leaving a party, then you did deprive someone of the item, but the intent to deprive was not there, so it is not theft/stealing.

So if you want to look at the code as an object, then its probably not theft.

HOWEVER.

This code is considered a secret. Once the code was taken by an unauthorized party and realeased, then Cisco no longer had possession of the secret and likely wont be able to use that code without modifying it. So its clear that there was theft of a secret. This is similar to stealing a password, you aren't depriving the owner of the password, but its still theft because it isnt secret anymore.

Besides, didn't your mother ever tell that stealing was taking anything that didn't belong to you but belonged to someone else without their permission?

I am posting this as AC because I just created an account and still no email with my pw. :(

Thanks,
David

PS: Good summary of theft legally here:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Theft

"Twoccing"

[titzandkunt]

"For instance, if you had a summer home and left a car there so that you could just fly in and go with it, and some fuck wad took it over the winter and then put it back -- ensuring that nothing was damaged, the engine was serviced and the oil was changed and had someone on the inside so that if you were anywhere near a thousand mile fucking radius, they could put it back as good as new (or better) -- would this be theft?"

Well, in the UK at least it wouldn't be theft.

In your scenario, the car is kept as good as new and no criminal damage has ocurred, so the only offence comitted is that of Taking Without Consent (T.W/O.C in Police shorthand, hence the term "Twoccing").

This offense was dreamed up at the back end of the last century, when joyriding became immensely popular with the chavs and pikies that infest the housing projects of this green and pleasant land.

Since the car was invariably abandoned after the fun was over, the prosecutor could not show that there was an intent to permanently deprive the owner of his property, hence , no theft ocurred.

The Twoc law was introduced so that the fun-loving and excitable rascals who joyride could be charged with a more serious crime than merely busting a car door lock.

T&M.

Re:Reuters: source code lifted from Cisco corp net

[afidel]

Wouldn't be hard if you had a way to get past the firewall of doom (the nickname for the main gateway firewalls at Cisco). Once internal you basically have your typicall soft centered network. The source code is available via NFSv3 mount points that are protected by simple host authnetication with username/password authentication being bypassable. Only the export restricted stuff is really all that locked down and even that wouldn't be that hard to get to for a determined hacker.

This knowledge is now 3 years out of date but I really doubt Cisco has taken major leaps to improve internal security.