Xref: utzoo news.admin:3975 news.sysadmin:1398
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!mirror!frog!john
From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: A Question Of Ethics (was: Re: A *Big* Thank You)
Message-ID: <1266@X.UUCP>
Date: 12 Nov 88 04:48:00 GMT
References: <361@itivax.UUCP> <367@execu.UUCP> <1294@tmpmbx.UUCP> <372@itivax.UUCP>
Organization: Servants of the Great White Frog
Lines: 25

In article <372@itivax.UUCP>, scs@itivax.UUCP (Steve C. Simmons) writes:
> As for the folks who claim we're all better off because of this, I'm
> curious.  What fixes have come forward since the worm *but not related
> to it*?  None that I've seen.  Folks are suddenly a lot more security
> conscious in general but are applying fixes only on this relatively
> narrow point.  I'd say that we've had only a narrow improvement so far.
>
That's because all the people who know of existing bugs still don't want to
openly publish any bug fixes because Something Bad Might Happen.  That's
because they just don't learn.  Something bad will happen, again and again and
again, and they'll just say "I knew of that bug years ago, so I haven't
learned anything new."

Everyone who wants to strangle the wormer raise your right hand.
Everyone who knew about these bugs but didn't openly publish fixes for them
raise your left hand.
Everyone holding both hands up:  please place them around your own neck and
throttle yourself.

-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

	The preceeding is the official opinion
	of the management of radio station WB7EEL.