Until the morning of Wednesday, July 27, 2005, Mike Lynn was a researcher for Internet Security Systems, but he resigned 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.
Mike says, "In large part I had to quit to give this presentation because ISS and Cisco would rather the world be at risk, I guess. They had to do what's right for their shareholders; I understand that. But I figured I needed to do what's right for the country and for the national critical infrastructure."
As a result of taking this matter to the table, Mike is barred from discussing the details about his research into the vulnerabilities he claimed to have discovered in the widely used Cisco hardware. He no longer has his job at ISS, and an FBI investigation seems to be underway (although the FBI declines to comment).
Mike has been an attendee of PhreakNIC for years and is an active member of the Southeast 2600 community. Please donate to defray his legal costs - which may set a precedent for reverse-engineering research in the future.
Mike would also like everyone to know that any excess funds (should that end up being the case) from this collection will be donated to the EFF.
Mike also has asked that I give him a presentation slot for this year's convention so that he can talk about why the community rocks. Two years ago he gave us "Why You Suck" as a presentation. This year it's "Why You Rock."
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