Michael Lynn, Internet Security Systems

[Octafish]

This fella discovered the thing that makes it easy for Big Dim Brother to look into the Internets. So, they told Mike Lynn to "Shut up."

Whistleblower Faces FBI Probe

By Kim Zetter
Wired.com
7-29-5

The FBI is investigating a computer security researcher for criminal conduct after he revealed that critical routers supporting the internet and many networks have a serious software flaw that could allow someone to crash or take control of them.

Mike Lynn, a former researcher at Internet Security Systems, said he was tipped off late Thursday night that the FBI was investigating him for violating trade secrets belonging to his former employer, ISS.

Lynn resigned from ISS Wednesday morning after his company and Cisco threatened to sue him if he spoke at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas about a serious vulnerability that he found while reverse-engineering the operating system in Cisco routers. He said he conducted the reverse-engineering at the request of his company, which was concerned that Cisco wasn't being forthright about a fix it had recently made to its operating system.

Lynn spoke anyway, discussing the flaw in Cisco IOS, the operating system that runs on Cisco routers, which are responsible for transferring data over much of the internet and private networks.

SNIP...

Both companies knew about Lynn's plan to talk for a while and originally supported it. But at the last minute the companies tried to halt the presentation or force Lynn to allow Cisco representatives to speak as well. They threatened Lynn with a lawsuit if he talked and made good on that threat after his appearance, when they filed a restraining order to prevent him from saying anything else about the flaw.

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