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From: seward@CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU (Bill Seward)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Student suspended for distributing /etc/passwd
Message-ID: <0094A024.0B3B9CA0@CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU>
Date: 12 Jun 91 13:55:22 GMT
References: <31124@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: seward@CCVAX1.NCSU.EDU (Bill Seward)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Lines: 40

In article <31124@hydra.gatech.EDU>, ccastmg@prism.gatech.EDU (Michael G. Goldsman) writes:
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>---From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
>---Newsgroups: ga.general
>---Subject: Student suspended for helping hackers
>---Summary: Student deliberately compromised security of athena.cs.uga.edu
>---Date: 11 Jun 91 04:21:01 GMT
>---Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
>
>I didn't know that doing things with an /etc/passwd
>would be considered unauthoprized use.
>
>the file is readable by the world after all.
>The uga student was not the one who broke in.
>
>I have some serious problems with UGA supending him.
>
>-Mike Goldsman

I don't see a problem with looking at it on that particular machine, but if
you snarf a copy to send to someone who you know is going to use it to
try to break into the system, then _I_ have a major problem with it.  If
I'm not mistaken (and I may be, I'm not a legal person), they call that
"aiding and abbetting" and/or "accessory before the fact".  

I also think that he was lucky to just get suspended.  If he had done
something similar on one of "my" systems (we run VMS, so that particular act
isn't possible) I would push to have him expelled and hopefully have
charges brought against him.

(I know I sound a bit extreme on this, but if we, as computer people, don't 
start more effectively with this sort of thing, others, who aren't as
computer knowledgable, will try to do it for us and muck it all up.)


******************************************************************************
  Bill Seward -- Analyst, Programmer, System Manager, User Training,
                 Operations and whatever else needs doing.
        Cutaneous Pharmacology & Toxicology Center, NC State University
  SEWARD@NCSUVAX.BITNET                            SEWARD@CCVAX1.CC.NCSU.EDU