Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication
From: gboyce <gboyce () badbelly com>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:48:40 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, n3td3v wrote:
On 4/20/06, Morning Wood <se_cur_ity () hotmail com> wrote:Since you are hellbent on leather here... your oh so loved Securityfocus / Bugtraq does the same thing. Many of my own advisories are put on Bugtraq without me submitting directly. I guess http://www.osvdb.org is just as guilty? Perhaps Milw0rm too?No, Mlw0rm tells you who discovered the vulnerability, as do other sites. Although Secunia tell you it was all their work. I bet you would be pretty pissed if you post one of your XSS or SQL injection, and it appears on the Secunia website the next day saying "Secunia FOUND". They are using the URL to get away with it and claim its their advisory as soon as its post to FD. Folks like HP advisories put a copyright notice at the bottom, but Secunia come along and reword the advisory and everything without persmisson. This isn't about just copy and pasting an advisory from a list and putting it on a website, this is about rewording and taking credit for other peoples work.
Here's a snippet from a FAQ on copyright: (republishing an article on copyright? Delicious!)
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html 10) "They e-mailed me a copy, so I can post it."To have a copy is not to have the copyright. All the E-mail you write is copyrighted. However, E-mail is not, unless previously agreed, secret. So you can certainly report on what E-mail you are sent, and reveal what it says. You can even quote parts of it to demonstrate. Frankly, somebody who sues over an ordinary message would almost surely get no damages, because the message has no commercial value, but if you want to stay strictly in the law, you should ask first. On the other hand, don't go nuts if somebody posts E-mail you sent them. If it was an ordinary non-secret personal letter of minimal commercial value with no copyright notice (like 99.9% of all E-mail), you probably won't get any damages if you sue them. Note as well that, the law aside, keeping private correspondence private is a courtesy one should usually honour.
I believe the relevant section here is this:"However, E-mail is not, unless previously agreed, secret. So you can certainly report on what E-mail you are sent, and reveal what it says. You can even quote parts of it to demonstrate."
If they are rewording advisories, then they are revealing information which was not secret. Assuming that they are in fact claiming the discovery as their own (I haven't checked this myself), I'd consider that dishonest, but I don't know it would be considered a copyright violation. Perhaps plagiarism.
(Note, I am not a lawyer, and I'm probably full of misinformation) -- Greg _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
Current thread:
- Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication n3td3v (Apr 20)
- RE: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication fractalg (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication Morning Wood (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication n3td3v (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication Morning Wood (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication gboyce (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication A . L . M . Buxey (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication Mike Owen (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication John Cartwright (Apr 21)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication Sean Crawford (Apr 21)
- vote nay to mod n3td3v [was: Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication] Gadi Evron (Apr 21)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication n3td3v (Apr 21)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication Anders B Jansson (Apr 21)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication n3td3v (Apr 21)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication A . L . M . Buxey (Apr 22)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication n3td3v (Apr 20)
- Re: Secunia illegal spam and advisory republication A . L . M . Buxey (Apr 22)