Incredible tale from Black Hat regarding the Cisco bug and subsequent legal actions — Here is the real tale behind the Lynn/ISS/Cisco fiasco.
The story so far:
Cisco and Internet Security Systems (ISS) sued Mike Lynn and Black Hat immediately following Mike’s speech on vulnerabilities in Cisco’s widely used Internet routers. The lawyers scrambled and we were able to settle the case cheaply and expeditiously within 24 hours. We had plans to drink expensive champagne. But then, mere hours after we filed the settlement papers, FBI agents showed up on the conference floor and started asking questions.
I hurried away from my mother and our giant mai tai to the Black Hat area, where I found two men, obviously FBI agents, talking with the Black Hat lawyer. The agents told us that they were from the Las Vegas office, that they were visiting at the request of the Atlanta office (close to where both Lynn and ISS are located) and that they weren’t currently interested in talking with Mike.
One of the very next things I did was call Valentine, the Cisco/ISS lawyer. After spending hours working together, settling this case, after the bonhomie and the virtual handshakes, they’d still have a federal investigation hanging over our heads? I was really mad. Unfortunately, Valentine didn’t answer the phone. If he had, I would have learned that he didn’t know about the federal investigation. Instead, I left him a voicemail in which I definitely used the word “sleazy” more than once.
I then turned on the General Counsel for Cisco and the outside lawyer for ISS. Both calmly informed me that they hadn’t known about the federal investigation before my call. Valentine got one more call from me, apologizing for assuming he’d screwed us over.
The next step was to find out the extent of the federal interest in this matter and what they were investigating. Continue reading here…
We are heading into the Thought Police era. If you store code in your head, they can get a search warrant for your brain. Give us the code you geek or we’ll ship you off to Cuba for re-education at our new detention center. Don’t put your ladder up against a cloud. Just play dumb. It works for presidents and senators all of the time. The American people spend $64 Billion a year on illegal drugs, so a good defense may be to just act burned out like you did too much coke. Act like you can’t remember your name and you might get left alone. Tell the Thought Police you can’t remember the alphabet and can only count with your fingers. If they are federal thought police, try using Bushisms and say is that all right, if I call you a ‘piece of work’? If you get pressed for more details, just say It’s in our country’s interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm’s way.
These could help, but do not permanently fix the solution. Good luck.