A lot has happened since my Right to Defend column last July, and the subsequent presentation I made at the Blackhat Security Briefings in Las Vegas. The idea has withstood a lot of criticism.

To refresh, I believe you should have the right to neutralize a worm process running on someone else's infected system, if it's relentlessly attacking your network. I've even written code to demonstrate the process. Though the initial news coverage of the concept was grossly inaccurate in conveying my ideas, it has stirred up a constructive dialog.

I knew my idea was controversial, but I was wrong about something-- I figured everyone in the security biz would "get it" and that the hard part would be convincing everyone else that if they can't or won't secure their machines, we as the defenders would have the right to terminate the process attacking us.

It has turned out to be the opposite.

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