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Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free!
From: Michal Zalewski <lcamtuf () coredump cx>
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:22:32 -0800
Team France pointed out that the legal situation for our industry has gotten even more murky in France.
How so? Weaponized exploits are at best dual-use - and one could argue that their primary purpose is a socially undesirable one. The situation is roughly similar to getting in trouble for selling keyloggers, SIM cloning kits, etc - they do have some fringe legitimate uses, but offering them to the highest bidder is bound to strike a chord with many audiences, and many societies were eager to ban or restrict such trade in the past. So what's new? It's also not fundamentally different from existing legal attitudes toward non-software dual-use tools; in a couple of western countries, you need a prescription to buy syringes; in others, you are not allowed to buy lockpicks. Silly, maybe. Profoundly sinister or malicious? Probably not. Now, admittedly, *all* attempts to restrict software trade are a bit murky, as algorithms are at their core just ideas, and might be considered free speech. I would still hate to be the company that eagerly sold a weaponized 0-day to a shady, anonymous buyer, only to find out the 0-day got used by a foreign government to pwn US consulates around the world, though - as I suspect even this defense may be not enough. Cheers, /mz _______________________________________________ Dailydave mailing list Dailydave () lists immunitysec com http://lists.immunitysec.com/mailman/listinfo/dailydave
Current thread:
- Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! dave (Nov 30)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Charles Miller (Nov 30)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Halvar Flake (Dec 01)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Michal Zalewski (Nov 30)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Cedric Blancher (Dec 01)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Michal Zalewski (Dec 01)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Cedric Blancher (Dec 01)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Cedric Blancher (Dec 01)
- Re: Give us your tired, your poor, your exploit writers yearning to breath free! Charles Miller (Nov 30)