Security Research and Blackmail

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 10, 2008 @03:36PM from the pay-to-play dept.

harryjohnston alerts us to a story picked up by a few bloggers in the security space. A Russian security research company, Gleg, has discovered a zero-day in the latest version of RealPlayer 11. But they won't reveal details to Real, or to CERT, despite repeated requests. Details are available only to their clients who pay a lot of money for early access to such knowledge. To describe Gleg's business model Daniweb rather cautiously puts forward the word "blackmail." The story was first exposed in Ryan Nariane's Securitywach blog.

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Let me be the first to say... by rhizome · 2008-02-10 16:15 · Score: 0, Redundant

I'm surprised nobody has said it yet, but Real deserves this.

--
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Re:Blackmail eh? by Vectronic · 2008-02-10 17:00 · Score: 0, Redundant

Extortion is basically the (ab)use of power to obtain something you wouldnt be able to obtain without the power.

Blackmail is generally the use of information or threats to extort something you desire from someone else.

Blackmail is essentially a method of extortion.