Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!cmcl2!acf3!rosenblg
From: rosenblg@acf3.NYU.EDU (Gary J. Rosenblum)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: The worm's real purpose
Message-ID: <2210004@acf3.NYU.EDU>
Date: 9 Nov 88 05:30:00 GMT
References: <16496@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 21

Do you also belive then that you can point out a bank's security 
problems by going in and robbing it?  Yes, there are quite a few 
security holes in Unix, and they need to be fixed.  But is effectively 
crippling the work of a great number of people all across the 
world (mostly US)  the best way to point out these problems?  Here at 
NYU the people who were hurt the most were undergrads and grad students
doing their assignments and what-have-you.  Who was he trying to
point out these problems TO?  If the vendor/developer of the code
was his "target" (for lack of a better word), why did end-users 
have to suffer?  An extraordinarily large number of people had to 
deal with the problems caused by the worm.  The end certainly does 
not justify the means.  I am not one to say 'hang him as a symbol to 
all those who might try this', in fact I have not made up my mind what 
*I* would do with him (but that's not my decision, merely my opinion).  
But there are far less irresponsible ways of pointing out problems than 
the way he chose.  


Gary J. Rosenblum	
UNIX Systems Manager			rosenblg@nyu.edu
New York University			gary@nyu.edu, gary@acf3.nyu.edu