IP: How to mass-market a Windows cracking tool

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 14:48:28 -0500
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
>
> ***********
>
> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 11:23:15 -0800
> To: politech () politechbot com
> From: "A.Lizard" <alizard () ecis com>
> Subject: mass-marketing a cracking tool
>
> for those of you who read ISN Security News, yes, this is a copy of the
> post I just sent to the list. I figured this would be of interest to
> politech subscribers as well.
>
> Would you believe that someone is marketing a Windows computer cracking
> tool as a Napster alternative?
>
> ["ShareSniffer Inc.'s newly-launched software, also called ShareSniffer,
> allows people to hunt for exposed Windows file systems with the ease of a
> Napster-user searching for a favorite track. "Right now... there are tens
> of thousands of computers worldwide that have their files deliberately
> shared with the Internet with no password required," reads the ShareSniffer
> web site.  The site goes on to encourage netizens to rummage through
> strangers' music files, digital movies, Microsoft Word documents and
> spreadsheets.  The company motto: "Because it's there."]
>
> In other words, it's a user friendly Windows cracking tool marketed to the
> general public. This class of tool is well-known, It's making this kind of
> tool usable even for novices and marketing it that's the innovation.
>
> Handing this kind of tool out to people too unsophisticated to know that
> snooping through the hard drives of others is bad manners at best, likely
> to get their ISP accounts terminated, and even get put them in jail and
> encouraging them to use it is one of the most irresponsible things I've
> ever heard of.
>
> http://www.securityfocus.com/news/159
>
> news.admin.net-abuse.email
> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=alt.sharesniffer&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rnum=10&seld=922054339&ic=1 
>
>
>
> And the site URL, which for some reason isn't in the article is:
> http://www.sharesniffer.com .
>
> I'd say security by obscurity about this isn't working, when I searched on
> sharesniffer earlier at google, I turned up hits on alt.hacker.malicious
> and alt.fan.cult-dead-cow
>
> I immediately checked my Windows network permissions to make *sure* I
> hadn't inadvertently turned "file sharing ON"... and I'm running dialup
> behind the ZoneAlarm firewall. :-)
>
> Of course, people who don't have their network permissions turned on to
> share files are immune, as are people with decent firewalls.
>
> While I strongly suspect that sharesniffer is going to disappear very soon,
> the program is going to be showing up at a great many places in the future,
> among them your friends / neighbors / clients / users' hard drives.
>
> A.Lizard



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