Re: SATAN

[ericm @ microunity . com (Eric Murray)]

Carl Jolley wrote:
> 
> This is probably the most naive thing I've heard or read all day.

i agree.  SATAN should be freely available to all, or not
available at all.

[..]

> It doesn't matter anyway. Dan Farmer has said what he's going to do and
> based on what I've read, nothing can stop him. He is on a "holy mission"
> and any and all consequences that may, and probably will result from what
> he is going to do, be damned.  In my opinion, he has no fear that several
> $100 millions of civil law suits will be filed against him about the
> second week of April nor does he care that people may die as a result of
> what he does.

people may die?  excuse me?  that's a little far fetched isn't it?

especially since SATAN will NOT contain ANY new hacks.  nor will it
contain exploit code.  this is according to the authors.
all of the holes that SATAN looks for are already known.
if some hacker's going to use these holes to break into
say a hospital and rm -rf / on the life support systems there
(I presume that's your "people may die" case) they
can ALREADY DO IT NOW!  all the holes are KNOWN!

if you're concerned, go get the docs for SATAN and read what
the holes are.  then make sure you've patched them.  problem solved.


the media hype about SATAN is incredibly thick.  i have to
keep reminding myself what it really is; from reading the
media, you'd think that one click of a SATAN-button gets
you directly into the NORAD computers, right from your
PC at home!  unfortunately, that just isn't the case.
Firewalls list readers should be a little more thoughtful.

Now, if you've read this far and want to flame the shit out of
me, please go READ THE DOCS on SATAN.  If you can quote part of
the docs that prove me wrong, that SATAN does include previously
unknown holes and/or exploit code, I will gladly eat my words
in public.  If not, please don't clutter the list with
unfound assumptions.

--
     ericm         ericm @
 microunity .
 com