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Re: [Full-disclosure] Benign Worms

The idea of a begin worm is a nice idea but doesn't work in practice. Oh I have known admins who let loose all sorts of automatic update process that were little different from worms and they regretted it. These people were far from middle school. and "millions and billions" sounds something Carl Sagan used to say. I do worry that this is another of those flame war topics that have been beat to death.

Have Fun,
Sends Steve


J.A. Terranson wrote:

On Fri, 13 May 2005, k k wrote:



There is debate surrounding whether releasing benign worms such as Nachi or
Welcha,



First off, lets get something straight: Neither of your two examples was
in any way "benign".  Both of these cost carriers and their customers
*billions* of dollars.  Many of us spent weeks with little to no sleep
cleaning up the mess these "benign viruses" created.




in general is ethical or not.



I don't know where you've been looking, but the only place I've seen the
ethics of this "seriously debated" is in middle schools and the like.
There is no serious question that this is a hostile act, and cannot
logically be considered "ethical" under *any* conceivable circumstances.




But network administrators can still
create benign worms for their need (not necessarily Nachi or Welcha) and
release them in their domain to patch systems.



You actually know admins that write viruses to do their patching?  Sorry,
but I think you're full of shit.  If you're not, then these "admins" need
to be immediately given a boot in the balls, followed by an unemployment
benefit.  Why would an *administrator*, someone with FULL rights to the
machine, use such a device to place patches???





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