Scruge

I think he was referring to those sites mentioned in the article. Netstumbler.org wasn't mentioned.

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Dutch

Thats BS... It's like saying "Whole communities, such as Leosonline.com, exist on the internet to discuss procedures for breaking into houses and killing people."

The NS forums clearly states in the forum rules and guidelines posted in the Welcome Desk, that criminal activity and discussion thereof, will not be tolerated.
This policy is enforced with a vengeance by all the moderators here. Two of those moderators, Thorn & G8t, has a law enforcement background, which also has been made known multiple times in different posts on the forums.
Audit has a strong InfoSec background, including working for TLA's in the past. All in all, the Moderators here has a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong, and that shows in all the policy making for how the forums is run.

But since this is an InfoSec related forum, the tools the opposition uses, has too be discussed, in order to protect against those tools and procedures.

It's the old question of how much do you reveal, in order to protect against the tool, and not provide a step-by-step guide for the scriptkiddies to use those tools. It's a fine balance, and one which I feel the NS forums does manage quite well.

All that would have been evident for a proper journalist doing his research for his article. Alas, the opening "headliner" section which G8t quoted, shows that the author of that article, doesn't fall into the category of a proper journalist.

Dutch

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AxlMyk

Netstumbler.org may not have been mentioned, but netstumbler.com was.. All you have to do is click on forums, and you're here, but of course you all know that.. There have been many articles published about breaking into wireless networks, and many of them have mentioned netstumbler..

As a member of a local computer users group, I had been in many meetings with our local and state police when one of our libraries installed internet connected computers several years ago.. There was much concern in the community about it.. I am aware of the legal and safety issues and concerns, and we spent many hours discussing those issues with library and community leaders..

Journalists don't neccessarily care that their information is 100% accurate, all they want is to get the story out.. Until the time that they get morals, this site, all that frequent it, and those that wardrive as a sport, are going to have to bite the bullet..

Perhaps the sensitve information in these forums could be protected by allowing access to those that have been here an amount of time, and are somewhat known to the admins.. That way the casual browser, unfriendly journalist, and potential network cracker would have no info to go on..

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wrzwaldo

Bite the bullet? How? Why?

beakmyn

...and get paid.

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Chris

Congratulations. You have offered up the stupidest comment I have heard in a LONG time. Journalists are lazy and don't care if they get it right so WE have to bite the bullet? That's fucking ridiculous. We may not be able to stop them, but we can certainly make enough of a stink when it happens to maybe make the next twit think twice. It has worked. Most of the regulars on here have dealt with both good and bad journalists...some of us (me included) have dealt with bad one, that were shown the error of their ways and became good ones. That would never have happened if we had just 'bit the bullet.'

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AxlMyk

I have e-mailed a journalist that was spreading bad info about netstumbler, and never recieved a reply.. To me, that means my views didn't matter to him.. If your own e-mail campaigns have worked in the past, great.. Keep it up.. Let me know when and to who the e-mails are to be sent, and I will add my own to his/her inbox..

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Enjoying the time to do what I want to do..

theprez98

22 of the top 25 newspapers in the country had declines in circulation this year. Most of them, larger than previous years. People are hitting the newspapers where it counts--in the pocketbook.

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Barry

What's this newspaper thing you speak of??

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Airstreamer

I dunno. Something about ground up trees, sprayed with ink patterns, I think.

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Barry

Ground up trees!! Why would anybody want to do that!!??



By the way, the site works pretty well with FireFox 3.

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Penny's giving it up. She's giving it up hard. Cause she's with Captain Hammer, and these, are not the hammer...... The hammer is my penis. --- Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

beakmyn

It's what they gift wrap the comics/coupon flyer in every Sunday.

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theprez98

.LOL.

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renderman

Talked to the reporter this afternoon. It's the usual one sided interview from a presenter at a con with something to sell. He admitted that he did not try to contact anyone at the sites he listed, and I gave him shit for it.

He also seemed to clue into the fact that the vulnerabilities exist, hiding them makes it worse, and that tools can be used for both good and bad (hammer analogy).

Not much can be done since the article is written, but he got clued in I believe. Makes me think we need a contact address on the CoWF

1 down, 40 billion to go.

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c0nv3r9

This has absolutely no relation to morals.

Along the written thought process of the author, anyone that graced mp3.com back in the day was part of an evil hacker conspiracy to steal music and destroy the music industry? .. or everyone that visits thepiratebay is out to theft software?

Its called generalisation. Do it in respect to someone's nationality and you will get thrown on your ass for lack of journalistic tact. It is entirely possible that folks visiting sites on the Internet will use the information criminally; this is true for any site with informational content.. whether about guns, bombs, gerbils, bbq spicery, sexual positions or a healthy mix of all the above. The sites mentioned in the article actively discourage illegal usage of the knowledge and tools. The community surrounding those sites has sought for .. 4? 5? years to inform the public of security risks and solutions in assistance against those that would use the knowledge to cause them harm.

Ludicrous.

What defines 'sensitive information'? ping, traceroute, nmap, wget and thousands of other utilities are equally 'evil hacker tools'. Do we recess acknowledgement that they exist to avoid the misperception of a lazy local news hack? Maybe we should just tell visitors that WiFi is simply voodoo.. mystical spirits conjured to transfer electronic messages between porn viewers. That will certainly keep people from understanding what occurs when. Shit.. we should be targeting all HAMs for spreading their evil communications to the masses.

In the many years that I have traversed this forsaken technology.. equally as reader/writer/mod/admin/luser.. I can honostly report that the length of someones visit does not correlate to their intelligence or their ethic, nor does the quanitity of discussion. The suggestion that the administrative figures surrounding these forums could feasibly implement an algorithm for discerning this is simply misguided. You've obviously been on the 'reader/luser/' side of the pond for the duration.


In all this I think its quite interesting that the CoWF got dragged into things. Ethical usage of this information, discovery, and the tools/code involved.. simply has been the heart of its founding since blackwave turned it from a forum farce into something electrically tangible. I am not aware of a single publishing member within CoWF today that doesn't carry and convey that core ethic.

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