Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!pyramid!prls!mips!sultra!dtynan
From: dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Getting Even
Message-ID: <2622@sultra.UUCP>
Date: 8 Nov 88 00:50:43 GMT
References: <367@execu.UUCP> <265@acheron.UUCP> <1636@pikes.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: Tynan Computers, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 30

In article <1636@pikes.Colorado.EDU>, netnews@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Robert Sklar) writes:
> 
> [...]  Not only that,
> but said individual also owned up to the fact that he did it.  I think that
> if I was making the decision to hire someone, I would want someone as smart
> as that on my team.  It's things like this which make us sit up and take
> notice that maybe everything is not as easy as we think.
> 
> Robert M. Sklar - News Administrator @ CU-Denver

First off, why didn't he own up when it could have made a difference.  A lot
of people lost a lot of sleep for fear that a) there may have been more to
the worm than they had found, and b) that the thing may have a destructive
bent.  If he had admitted to it thursday or friday, and told people about the
'pleasequit' option, things mightn't have been so bad.  Secondly, I spent an
inordinate amount of time, while in college, discovering ways to get the
OPERATOR password on a DecSystem-20.  In the process, I discovered numerous
ways of crashing the system.  Want to guess how often I've used this invaluable
knowledge since then?  Of course it's valuable to know the different security
holes in a system, but it's also a great help if you know that someone is
screwing around with them beforehand.  Unfortunately, however, I think you're
right - the media will probably make a cult figure out of him -- The "child
genius"-type story.  I think they should make an example of him, otherwise
other people will try for "fame and glory" as well, and where would that put
us?
						- Der
-- 
	dtynan@Tynan.COM  (Dermot Tynan @ Tynan Computers)
	{apple,mips,pyramid,uunet}!zorba.Tynan.COM!dtynan

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