Re: NSA tracking open source security tools

[Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu>]

--On February 4, 2006 1:21:41 AM -0800 Fyodor <fyodor () insecure org> wrote:

> Of the recent U.S. political scandals, one of the most divisive is the
> issue of President Bush (IMHO illegally) authorizing the NSA to
> conduct warantless wiretaps on Americans' phone calls and emails.
> While I don't like the NSA tracking my phone calls, they are welcome
> to track Nmap release status.  And apparently they are doing so :).
> The latest (February 6) issue of Newsweek has a picture on page 39 of
> George Bush visiting the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade.  A wall-sized
> screen in the background displays the latest versions of our favorite
> open source security tools, including Nmap, Metasploit, Snort,
> Ethereal, Cain & Abel, and Kismet.  Nifty.  For those
> without the magazine, I have posted a pic at:
So....you think what the NSA is doing is illegal and you don't like them 
tracking your phone calls (why would they be?  Are you talking to bin 
Laden?), but you think that them using tools that can be used to 
successfully hack computer networks is "nifty"?

No double standard there, huh?  :-)

Love Nmap, BTW.  Great tool.  Thanks for writing and consistently 
maintaining it.

Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/
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