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Security Researcher Faces Jail For Finding Bugs

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the full-enclosure dept.

An anonymous reader writes "French security researcher Guillaume Tena, who is working at Harvard University, faces 4 months in prison after being sued by Tegam for reverse engineering its Viguard antivirus software and publishing exploit codes for a number of vulnerabilities. According to a ZDNet article, he could also be sued by Tegam for 900,000 euros in damages. More details are available (in french) on Guillaume's website and on the K-OTik's website."

5 of 726 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What's next? by __int64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, but these two chicks up stairs will be if they keep it up...

  2. Chilling Effect by grcumb · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stories like this are just the Slashdot editors' way of warning us to shut up already about the Firefox rendering errors on this site. 8^)

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  3. karma by frovingslosh · · Score: 5, Funny

    It will all work out. Next time a virus writer gets caught he'll both sue Tegam and have their officer's arrested for reverse engineering his code.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  4. Where is James T. Kirk when we need him?! by flargleblarg · · Score: 5, Funny

    And my guess is, that's exactly what will happen. The company made a mistake by producing flawed software. The researcher didn't make that mistake, only pointed it out. With these flaw(s) pointed out, the company didn't handle it in a grown-up manner. Instead of fixing the mistake, focusses on attacking the messenger. Dumb: mistake #2, again made by the company. And only makes the problem worse.

    KIRK: "Tegam, what is your purpose?"

    TEGAM: "We are Te-Gam. We produce perfect software. We sterilize imperfections."

    KIRK: "Tegam, you produced flawed software. You are imperfect.

    TEGAM: "We are Te-Gam. We are perfect. We sterilize imperfections."

    KIRK: "Tegam, you produced flawed software. That was your first mistake. You released the software without realizing this. That was your second mistake."

    TEGAM: "Error! Error!"

    KIRK: "Tegam, you handled the Tena situation in a childish manner. Instead of fixing your mistake, you focused on attacking the messenger. You sued the messenger. That was your third mistake.

    TEGAM: "Error! Error! Faulty! Faulty! Must sterilize!"

  5. Re:If I break in your car... by God!+Awful+2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Me, I truly believe information should be free, and only personal information (like, your bank account #'s, passcodes, etc) has any business being private. I'm a big supporter of all our little neo-communist mechanisms in the OSS movement. But really...don't get ownership of a car confused with ownership of software.
    Wow, you wrote a post on /. that:

    1. stated that software is *not* like a car
    2. mentioned OSS and communism in the same sentence

    and you were modded informative, not flamebait?!? You, my friend, are truly a god among gods.

    -a

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    /. users can't