14 DAY TRIAL // A couple of hours ago, John Cartwright, the administrator of the grok.org.uk Full-Disclosure mailing list, announced that the service was suspended indefinitely.
The Full-Disclosure list was created back on July 9, 2002, by Cartwright and Len Rose. Cartwright says that they were expecting to bump into legal problems right from the start.
“To date we've had all sorts of requests to delete things, requests not to delete things, and a variety of legal threats both valid or otherwise. However, I always assumed that the turning point would be a sweeping request for large-scale deletion of information that some vendor or other had taken exception to,” he noted.
Apparently, the shutdown of the service is not a result of action taken by a vendor, but by a researcher from within the community. The individual in question has not been named, but his actions are apparently “the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“I'm not willing to fight this fight any longer. It's getting harder to operate an open forum in today's legal climate, let alone a security-related one. There is no honour amongst hackers any more,” Cartwright said.
“There is no real community. There is precious little skill. The entire security game is becoming more and more regulated. This is all a sign of things to come, and a reflection on the sad state of an industry that should never have become an industry.”
The mailing list already appears to be unavailable.