I applaud Fyodor for being up front with the concern over the subpoenas since they reflect a change from the past for his insecure.org site, and for his looking at both sides of this issue very carefully to make sure that the FBI was doing things in the right way.

The nmap "TOOL" is a wonderful and powerful tool in the hands of a responsible person, security expert or not, who is just trying to scan their own network, or the network of someone who has requested it, or for any one of its legitimate uses. As we have seen in the past, open ports can be a very dangerous thing and any fastidious domain holder or computer owner needs to be aware of what ports are open on their network to prevent intrusion in the best ways they can.

Tools are tools, they can be used for many purposes; and some of the best tools in the world can often only be used for good or for evil. This does not make the tools themselves good or bad. Einstein, one of the great tinkers of all time, was so saddened by what was being done with his work, he said if he had known, he would have been a locksmith (paraphrased of course).

I take offense to nmap being termed in this article authoritatively as a hacker tool -- that is not it's only use -- nor its most important use.

I take even greater offense to the term hacker being continually used in a negative connotation by those who should know better. Just like tools, hackers can be good or evil, or anywhere in between.

Not all hackers are bad, they never have been and never will be. Without hackers, who are curious discovery adventurers, great thinkers, tinkerers, developers, programmers, whatever you want to call them, there will be no innovation for the future. Think about it?! If we give all hackers a bad name, who will build the next great innovation?! Who will be the the author of the next step, whatever that might be for hardware standards, wireless standards, world wide web or internet standards, or even the next step in energy for our planet, or the next form of personal vehicle transportation, or other great innovations that might never become a reality because we are becoming so fearful of those with knowledge that we will ultimately repeat history, yet again. I heard recently that there was a time in the Dark Ages when, what was termed as tinkerers in their day, were actually banned from pubs and/or other public places because of fear? If this were true, will we yet again make this same mistake?

Soapbox OFF.

I also applaud the FBI for keeping the subpoenas to the specific time frame they believe something happened so there was no needless invasion of privacy in the course of trying to bring to justice those who have violated others rights.

[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/10011/29355#29355