Proposed legal guidelines change re "illegal" packages

[Ricky Zhou]

On 2010-11-11 03:45:43 PM, Mike McGrath wrote:
> Sure there's a difference between using 'normal' software improperly.
> But if left up to a jury, of which probably none has a clue what the likes
> of nmap or sql even are, would you let them decide if you, Behdad
> Esfahbod, should be held to legal and financial damages should someone
> misuse that software?
> 
> Because that's what people are asking Red Hat to do.  And yes, there is
> certainly some very not-illegal uses for sqlninja.  But would you be
> willing to sit in a court room, with your money sitting on the chair next
> to you, while some high paid prosecutor tries to get it by showing a jury
> the huge lettering on their website that says:
> 
> "SQLNINJA ... a SQL Server injection & takeover tool" -
> http://sqlninja.sourceforge.net/
> 
> I'm just saying this one doesn't seem as clean cut to me as it did when I
> first heard it.
I'd really like to have some more solid idea of the risk of something
like this actually happening to the distributor of a package before
deciding that we need to reject the package.  Is it really a serious
legal threat that the Linux distro used to perform an attack would get
in trouble for carrying this package, despite the valid legal uses of
the software?

Thanks,
Ricky
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