“L0pht obviously has a noble cause. The group is out to patch
security holes in the industry. Its goal is to coerce vendors to
fix inherent security problems with their products and to force the
vendors to patch holes more quickly….”
“L0pht is also correct in its assertions. Operating system
vendors are more afraid of bad publicity than they are of security
holes. Vendors confronted with such holes will quickly dismiss them
as theoretical and attempt to bury them. Surely that’s not
responsible computing, and Microsoft, Allaire and even the Linux
distributors have fallen prey to L0pht….“
“That’s where L0pht is today. The group has a noble goal, says
industry analyst Atul Kapoor, but it is forgetting the people. The
vendors aren’t really harmed by what L0pht is doing-it’s us. That’s
why nearly 100 ColdFusion sites got hacked within two days of
L0pht’s posting of a script kiddie to exploit a weakness at
Allaire.”
“Now Professor Mudge, L0pht’s leader, is reportedly pursuing his
real love-the electrical power grid. He says it’s insecure because
utility workers mistakenly post secure files on the public Net.
What’s he going to do, bring it down to prove his point?”