Re: Ethics, morality and the industry

[Margles <margles () gmail com>]

Good for them.

I once witnessed an entire room of security executives give a standing
ovation to Abagnale.     Then checked out a website with which he was
associated, and a book he had written, accidentally realizing in the
process that there were significant differences in what he said
speaking versus what I saw on the site and in the book...

We as a society clearly elevate unethical and dishonest behaviour, not
only in security but many other areas.  Of course, this is a biased
view, as I have been accused of being "too ethical" and "too honest" -
but I am concerned about the effect this has on our society as a
whole.

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:58:48 -0400 (EDT), Paul D. Robertson
<paul () compuwar net> wrote:
> This year's CSI conference features the self-advancing "Catch me if you
> can" guy, Frank Abagnale as a keynote speaker.
>
> Because of this, one of my co-workers, Bill Murray, has withdrawn from
> speaking, as has Howard Schmidt with the "people who commit felonies
> shouldn't profit from the results of their nefarious deeds, let
> alone be sponsored by the security industry" train of thought[1].
>
> Bill's done the same before with a different organization advancing Kevin
> Mitnick in the past.  Personally, I think it's fantastic that there are
> still people in this world who are willing to take the moral high ground,
> and hold it.
>
> There's an interesting blurry line between doing things for good, and
> doing things that may be good or bad.  Hence I've mixed emotions about
> people putting together tools that really tend to have more value to the
> masses of bad guys than they do to the good guys.  We know tunneling is
> bad, we know it's an issue, and we don't need more tunnels to prove it-
> let alone ones that are script-kiddie enabled to go through the
> perimeter.  Maybe there's a grouping of "definitely good people,
> definitely bad people and sorta mixed in the middle" that I keep in my
> mind- certainly, I try to associate with "definitely good people."  Maybe
> it's time I hung up a "Please don't feed the script kiddies" sign?
>
> Anyway, I just figured I'd hop up on the soapbox and tip my hat to Bill
> Murray and Howard Schmidt.  Keeping your moral compass pointing in the
> right direction is a good thing.  We're an industry built on trust and
> ethics, and even if you don't particularly agree with someone's morality,
> it's not a bad thing to respect that they'll hold their ethics- it's easy
> to be ethical when nothing's on the line, the test is when you stand to
> lose something.
>
> Mostly, I just wanted to publicly voice my support for
> these gentlemen's actions, which to me speak much louder than words.
>
> Paul
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Paul D. Robertson      "My statements in this message are personal opinions
> paul () compuwar net       which may have no basis whatsoever in fact."
> probertson () trusecure com Director of Risk Assessment TruSecure Corporation
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