Security Researcher Faces Jail For Finding Bugs

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."

Comments

Lock him up for finding bugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, if he'd helped a murderous dictator build nuclear reactors they'd probably elect him president....

Re:Lock him up for finding bugs?

[HermanAB]

No, but if he was the leader of a terrorist group, collected 250,000 hand grenades, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate, tens of thousands of mines, ran an illegal radio station and served 27 years in jail for all of that, then they would elect him president, give him a Nobel Peace Prize and honourary citizenship of Canada...

Re:That USED to be true.

[the angry liberal]

Yeesh! That's one scary link you added there. Gnnnn! However, in an ironic twist, psychologists have shown that Republicanism is likely a form of mental illness, and fMRI scans do show that extreme right-wingers show abnormal or no brain activity in areas associated with positive feelings, possibly indicating brain dysfunction or damage of some kind.

You don't need to MRI people to figure out if they are a conservative/republican. Just look for the slanted, small forehead and rounder-than-average head.

Re:If I break in your car...

[dAzED1]

there is more to "copyright" than just *copying*. There is *derivative works*, which covers a large gambit of things. If you buy Microsoft Office and use it to make a Word document, that is a *derivative work*. To be allowed the right to create that derivative work, something protected by copyright law, you have to agree to the license. And again again...I don't *like* this, instead I actually quite despise it, but that doesn't make it not true.

Additionally, radio stations often have to play song X to be allowed to play song Y...or, if they're going to play song Y at all, they have to put it on heavy rotation, playing it several times a day. They can't just put a cd in and send a quarter to someone - they have to get permission first, and often times (with top-40 pop, at least), that permission comes with a list of stipulations. Another example: you can't just buy a dvd and show it at a theatre, then send a check to someone. YOu have to get *permission* to do it first, because they may decide that if you are going to show it just once, you must show it a minimum of twice a night for 2 weeks, and on 1700 screens. Such are given as requirements on a regular basis.