The Full Disclosure mailing list, started in 2002 and a long time cornerstone of the Infosec community, has closed its doors.

For many users of the list, it has been an important part of their job, their hobby, and their ability to keep in tune with new security issues. We will miss the mailing list but we thank the Full Disclosure team for keeping the list alive as long as they did. Here was the final message posted by John Cartwright:




Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 10:30:15 +0000
From: John Cartwright <johnc@grok.org.uk>
To: full-disclosure@lists.grok.org.uk
Subject: [Full-disclosure] Administrivia: The End

Hi

When Len and I created the Full-Disclosure list way back in July 2002,
we knew that we'd have our fair share of legal troubles along the way.
We were right. 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.

I never imagined that request might come from a researcher within the
'community' itself (and I use that word loosely in modern times). But
today, having spent a fair amount of time dealing with complaints from
a particular individual (who shall remain nameless) I realised that
I'm done. The list has had its fair share of trolling, flooding,
furry porn, fake exploits and DoS attacks over the years, but none of
those things really affected the integrity of the list itself.
However, taking a virtual hatchet to the list archives on the whim of
an individual just doesn't feel right. That 'one of our own' would
undermine the efforts of the last 12 years is really the 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.
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.

I'm suspending service indefinitely. Thanks for playing.

Cheers
- John