Compliance Toolkit

Story: UK law will criminalise IT pros, say experts

• 
• 

As anyone who works in network admin knows, hacking and network security tools are basically the same thing. I have never attempted to access a network i don't already have permission for, yet my machine is full of tools such as Cain and Abel (which in itself proves the point), nmap, ethereal and so on. All of these have the potential to provide you with information that could let you compromise the security of a network - thats the point!! Were it not for these, i dread to think how many unprotected shares, open ports etc would have gone un-noticed.

At best this is bad legislation being passed by people who don't understand the technology. The cynic in me notes that software deemed as hacking tools is predominantly open-source coded by dedicated enthusiasts (nmap, Cain, winpcap etc) whereas the big network scanning products (such as GFI Languard) don't seem to suffer from the same level of suspicion.

• 
• 

• 
• 
• 

Full Talkback thread