RE: Moving forward with defintion of honeypots

["John McCracken" <john () mccrackenassociates com>]

I prefer OPTION B

Thanks!
John McCracken

-----Original Message-----
From: Lance Spitzner [mailto:lance () honeynet org] 
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 10:23 PM
To: honeypots () securityfocus com
Subject: Moving forward with defintion of honeypots

In the past week we have received over thirty postings
about the definition of honeypots, each posting suggesting
a different defintion.  I think we are all beginning to
realize just how tough it is to define this technology.
Honeypots are an extremely powerful tool that can
accomplish many different things.  Some trends I've noticed. 

First, many people are including the term 'decoy' in the 
definition.  While honeypots can 'decoy', I don't think 
that should be in the definition.  The term decoy implies 
"to lure or entrap".  Often honeypots don't lure.  You just 
put them out there and the bad guys find them on their own 
intiative, nothing special is done to insare the attacker.  
The Honeynet Project has being doing this for years now.

Second, many people are including in the definition how
honeypots are used to learn or research.  Once again, while
honeypots can do this, they can do so much more. They 
can be used for preventing attacks (such as LaBrea Tarpit)
or be used purely for detection similar to an IDS 
system (such as Honeyd).  We have to be very careful
in our defintion to ensure we do not imply why we would
want to use a honeypot.

Honeypots do not solve a specific problem, they are a 
highly flexible tool with many different applications to
security.  This is one of the things that makes honeypots
unique.

Based on all the feedback we have been getting, I've 
narrowed this down into two options.

Thoughts?


OPTION A
--------
  "A honeypot is an information system resource who's
   value lies in being probed, attacked, or compromised"

 
OPTION B
-------- 
  "A honeypot is an information system resource who's
   value lies in monitoring unauthorized or illicit use of 
   that resource"


-- 
Lance Spitzner
http://www.tracking-hackers.com