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Cisco Source Code Up For Sale: Only $24,000

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the hot-products dept.

spackbace writes "The notorious, mysterious Source Code Club (SCC) has re-emerged, this time selling source code for a Cisco application in another blatant violation of copyright regulations. Believed to be an anonymous collection of hackers, the SCC this week announced in a posting on a group Web site that it is offering the complete Cisco Pix 6.3.1 source code for US$24,000. Cisco Pix is a firewall application providing security, intrusion protection, network monitoring and other services for business and carrier networks."

15 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Take a cue from SCO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Take a cue from SCO and drop the price to $699. That way EVERYONE will buy it!

    1. Re:Take a cue from SCO by Plural+of+Mongoose · · Score: 5, Funny

      As long as they don't start selling software they steal from IBM, as then SCO would hafta sue 'em!

      --
      The last fucking thing you want is my undivided attention...
  2. $24k? by miles31337 · · Score: 5, Funny

    From my experience with PIXen, it's certainly not worth that...

  3. At least... by imsabbel · · Score: 5, Funny

    there is no ebay-link this time...
    But still i sense the good old "want to sell something? Advertise with a slashdot story" sprit :)

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  4. Will buy Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Anyone here has the source code for Linux OS? I'll pay roughly $2-3 grands via Yahoo Paydirect.

    1. Re:Will buy Linux by name773 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Of course, the toll-free telephone support line seems disconnected: 1-800-DEV-NULL
      at first i thought that said "troll-free telephone support line".

  5. I would buy it by lateralus_1024 · · Score: 5, Funny

    but i'm in California and I don't want to pay tax on it.

    --
    If you think /. comments are bad, check out Digg.
  6. Re:Pirated? by Agilis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not worth all that much to them sitting on their drives anyways. Who knows, some wacko might actually pay!

    But really it's just to generate bad publicity for cisco

  7. Re:Now that's irony! by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Insightful

    like mitnick proved, it only takes one idiot with social skills to bypass your firewall.

  8. A bit more by erick99 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I found this in another article about the same story:

    Also on offer, apparently, is the Enterasys Dragon IDS 6.1 intrusion detection system (IDS) software for $16,000 and an old Napster file sharing code, a snip at $10,000.

    The original name behind the group was one Larry Hobbles who now seems to have disappeared. The Source Code Club is now said to be hawking a list of other stolen code to anyone who buys one full copy of the source code for sale.

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  9. Re:Now that's irony! by madprof · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed, as in the Mitnick case, one idiot *did* do it...

  10. Someone paying 24k by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't going to start handing it out for free.

    The only real reason to want the code is to find exploitable holes in the software. If you're paying 24k so you can do that you presumably want to use those exploits for a purpose. Releasing the sourcecode and risking exploits becoming public (and then patched) devalues your investment.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    1. Re:Someone paying 24k by Xerp · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure. Yes. Pay 24k. Uh-hu. OK. Let me get my PayPal account set up. Ah, I have a buyer... "Leave the money in a brown paper bag STOP Wear a false mustache and a pink carnation STOP Make sure the bills are unmarked STOP Either that, or five copies of that wonderful Microsoft Windows XP will do STOP thank you Mr Ballmer STOP"

  11. Details by Rabin+Vincent · · Score: 5, Informative
    The group posted to FullDisclosure that they will post further announcements in alt.gap.international.sales.

    Sure enough, here's the CISCO Pix file listing and the "newsletter".

  12. Not even close by Plasmic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The value of this intellectual property is not defined by the cut-and-pasteability of source code into a company's product. Certainly, this is not the likely application for any would-be buyers. Instead, knowing how the #1 router company in the world implements stateful packet-filtering on an embedded device is a very worthy piece of knowledge that can be used as a basis for the design of anything that touches a packet.

    In addition, Cisco spends hundreds of thousands of dollars in their support organization identifying hard-to-find interoperability issues and exception cases, testing things out in the lab, and then coding up fixes. All of these real-world experiences and corresponding code work-arounds that impact every other firewall/VPN/routing product on the market are captured in this source code.

    Cisco PIXes have proprietary integration with third-party products, such as IDS systems, content-filtering proxies (e.g. WebSense), etc. This source code surely exposes these APIs, which are covered by Cisco's own NDA with these companies and are coveted by anyone trying to integrate with such closed-source commercial offerings.

    Were it legal, it'd be a bargain!