Phil typed:
Have things really come to this? Besides the legal implications of discovering a hole and then selling the information to someone, (who presumably will only want this information for one purpose) where has the attitude of doing for the sake of doing gone?
It's one thing to do good for the sake of doing good. Most of us do that every day by participating in this list. It's quite another thing to be insulted in the process. I think that Netscape's reward is an insult, If they think you can find major security bugs in Netscape for as little as $1000, they should take the product off the market, or at least stop claiming that it offers security.
Has Netscape been pestering security experts on the net for free work? Have they been plaguing people or lists with email asking the net to do their jobs?
They do far worse. They claim security when they don't have it, and when the cypherpunks demonstrate the false claims, Netscape offer insulting future tribute. I think that if they are sincere, they should reward the individuals who found the last few holes with $25,000 each, and show that they really mean business.
I am tired of hearing people who may have had the urge to find weaknesses and bugs now going greedy and deciding that they should be paid for it. If you dont want to participate then don't! Its that simple. If you feel netscape is a greedy money grubbing company who deserves to pay 25k for a bug report then start a company and develop a competing product which you feel deserves to get bug reports.
I'm not greedy, and I have never found a novel security hole and told the affected people they had to pay to find out about it. I just don't like seeing sincere people who volunteer their efforts being insulted or trivialized or taken advantage of by the big-money people - and make no mistake about it - that is what the Netscape offer is really all about. The $25K is a trivial amount for finding such a hole in a product that is supposed to secure billions of dollars worth of electronic funds transfers. If the bad guys find a hole, it could easily cost millions. If you don't believe me, look at the statistics for other holes in the credit card and telecommunications businesses. They losses are in the billions each year. If Netscape won't bet $25K that they have no such holes, why should their clients bet millions that the bad guys won't find and exploit one.
The reason why the Internet has become so popular/powerful is the willingness of people to help out and distribute information. As a computer/networking professional I have saved hundreds of hours worth of my time when someone has been able to answer a question or solve a problem for me. Likewise I have and continue to give back just as many hours back answering others questions. That attitude is completely lacking in your suggestion and I can only hope that the those opinions are in the minority even today.
It's not my attitude that's changing the Internet. It's the nature of any technology that it can be used for both good and evil. The Internet is no longer a research tool, and there are plenty of people using it for criminal purposes. If we don't start seriously rewarding people who find and help fix the holes, we are dooming the Internet. And, oh yeah, the reason the Internet became so popular so fast had nothing to do with free distribution of information. It had to do with the Vice President making public announcements about the NII, enormous public relations efforts, and lots of national advertising. The free information has been there for 25 years or so. The advertising and the enormous growth started when the marketing people got going.
The ironic part is the people who have been the most successful at finding bugs are not the ones who are demanding money for it!
The ironic part is that a company that claims to have a "secure" method for using credit cards on the Internet thinks that their security is so weak that it only takes $1000 to find a major hole. -- -> See: Info-Sec Heaven at URL http://all.net Management Analytics - 216-686-0090 - PO Box 1480, Hudson, OH 44236