Neoteric wrote:
] Okay it's not security... I just don't have misc on my list.

OMG....can you say road trip?

RE: EVIL DEAD 1 & 2 - The Musical

From speech_freedom2002@yahoo.com Wed Jul 16 10:59:47 2003
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 06:14:52 -0400
From: Rockit [speech_freedom2002@yahoo.com]
Reply-To: root@se2600.org
To: root@se2600.org
Subject: [se2600] Interz0ne Press Release re: Blackboard Settlement

Interz0ne Press Release:

Censorship via lawsuit wins again.

Lawyers working for Blackboard Inc., the maker of a card transaction, vending and ID system used by approximately 275 colleges and universities globally, as well as an undiscosed number of government and military installations, succeeded in silencing two college students who have found numerous flaws in Blackboard's flagship product over the last two years.

Georgia Tech student Billy Hoffman, along with University of Alabama student Virgil Griffith, initially kept the discoveries quiet while attempting to report them to Blackboard engineers, along with possible fixes. Traditionally, the discoverers of such flaws allow the vendors time to fix problems before going public; this provides the vendors with essentially free quality control labor while the discoverers get later bragging rights and items to pad their resumes. This unofficial system has worked well in the past, to the extent that Blackboard even boasts of working with the hacker community on their website.

Instead of taking an interest in news of these flaws, however, Blackboard engineers first dismissed Hoffman as a know-nothing "kid", then attempted to have him expelled from Georgia Tech after he voiced his concerns about Tech's Blackboard system to campus administrators and student organizations. Hoffman responded by first publishing his (and later Griffith's) findings, and then updating his articles via talks at various vendor and security conferences.

It was at such a conference, Interz0ne II in Atlanta, that Hoffman and Griffith were planning to discuss the most severe problems they had uncovered to date, including a demonstration of several easy-to-assemble hardware devices that could supposedly allow anyone with malicious intent free reign on a Blackboard system.

Hoffman and Griffith never gave their talk.

Instead, they and the convention organizers were served with both restraining orders and cease and desist orders. Court dates soon followed, along with legal threats. Several months after the convention, both Hoffman and Griffith settled out of court. They refuse to discuss the issue, so one can assume that the settlement includes an NDA.

Blackboard spokesdrone Michael Stanton stated to AP reporters on Monday, July 14th (a day before the settlement was officially filed) that "...the claims [Hoffman and Griffith] were making were silly," that "...they really didn't do a lot of the things they were claiming to [have done]" and that the settlement reaffirms that Blackboard's systems are secure.

Bullshit.

The settlement does nothing of the sort.

If Hoffman and Griffith's clai... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Interz0ne Press Release - re: Blackboard Settlement

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Peter Jennings, Canadian, on Harry Shearer's Le Show [Real]

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This is timball sending this to you. bitch.

The Rise and Fall of a Networked Society

] Blackboard said the settlement shows its systems are
] secure but the whole case is better understood as a
] successful attempt to protect the firm's reputation
] against the possibly exaggerated claims of a pair of
] student hacker/crackers

The register got caught up in the spin as well.

Since when is using the law an appropriate way to silence critics? Thats the very definition of censorship.

Can we accept that this is really the final word on the story, given that its coming from blackboard, and that Acidus and Virgil are injoined from responding?

Is Blackboard's technology secure?

We may never know. What we do know is that Blackboard has effectively silenced their critics, with extreme prejudice. My lawyer is bigger then your lawyer should not trump the first amendment. In this case it has. These student settled because they did not have the means to defend themselves.

Acidus and Virgil owe $20,000 in (clears throat) "legal fees." They are college students. They can't really afford this and they need help. If you would like to contribute, you can paypal the following email address: gte344p@prism.gatech.edu

The Register - Blackboard press release

] Two computer hackers admitted in a settlement Monday that
] they never completed a device that could cheat university
] campus debit card systems out of food, laundry machine
] use or sports tickets.

Spin Spin Spin...

More on this in a minute...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: BlackBoard press release

] Enjoy your youth, be wild, and get it out of your system;
] here are the 10 things you should accomplish before 30.

Top 10 things to do before you turn 30

] It's one thing to battle in the dark, believing the fight
] is roughly equal. Now, the genome age has shined a light
] on what was once an elusive enemy. Finally, we can see
] the armies massed against us, a foe of almost
] impenetrable diversity, and virtually anyone would agree
] that it doesn't look good. Yet strangely, now that the
] battle has been joined, cancer researchers have grown
] almost euphoric. The National Cancer Institute is boldly
] promising, if not a cure, at least "the elimination of
] suffering and death due to cancer" by 2015; of more than
] 20 researchers I spoke with, all believed that the next
] decade would bring a revolution in cancer medicine.
]
] At the root of this newfound optimism lie the very
] developments that revealed cancer's true nature in the
] first place: the sequencing of the human genome and the
] associated proliferation of new technologies - ranging
] from DNA chips to high-throughput gene-knockout
] techniques like RNA interference. (See "5 New Tools for
] Fighting Cancer," page 104.) Armed with these new
] weapons, researchers have begun an engagement that will
] more closely resemble the hunt for elusive al Qaeda
] operatives than a monolithic Cold War standoff.

An interesting look at where some cancer research is heading now that the Human Genome is available.

Wired 11.08: The End of Cancer (As we Know it)

Just caught this one in my inbox.. Psyiode has started up a site to keep track of the Blackboard case.

Its important to note that Psyiode has no connection to Acidus, Virgil, or any of the Interz0ne con staff. Blackboard may decide to come after him too.

I like the domain. :)

[werd. - Nano]

www.fuckblackboard.com