On 17-3-2009 19:55, Mike Raiford wrote:
> [GDS|Entropy] wrote:
>> True..
>>
>> But then again, even if that were so, at least that person is backdoor 
>> free now. ;-)
>>
>> Given the lack of any major brand name apps in that system, I doubt it 
>> was a commercial machine. It was probably just a system some plebe set 
>> up to mess around in. After all, who would want Solaris if not to run 
>> a major app on? Solaris sucks. There aren't many apps that run on it 
>> either.
>>
>> ian
> 
> So long as you keep in mind what you did could be considered criminal. 

I think 'could' may depend on the country Ians is in and the server was 
in. I.e. I don't rule out there are countries where this is not a crime, 
but in most countries it is a criminal act. Checking: hmm, Raleigh NC, 
USA. AFAIK it is a criminal act in the USA.

Perhaps Ian should have consulted someone before acting so rash.

> Even if you did it to retaliate against someone who was trying to hack you.

No it was retaliation against an owner of a system that was used in a 
hacking attempt. There is no proof at all that the owner had anything to 
do with it. I'd guess 85% percent that the owned was innocent but is now 
missing some months or years of work, let's hope there is a backup.
Some indication may be in how long it takes to get the system running 
again, if that is more than a few days, the owner was probably innocent.

I don't have much commercial software on my machine, but that does not 
mean that I only use it to mess around. Also note that when we have old 
machines running in the lab it often means that some old software runs 
on it that was not updated for newer OSes or that it interfaces to old 
but vital hardware. Yet they would easily pass Ian's "plebs test".

In short: I am not happy with this.

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