am I understanding this correctly ? Sybase is threatening "something" so that the technical details of the vulnerability are kept secret indefinitely ?
Yes - you understand correctly. Needless to say I hope all of this can be resolved amicably; and the details will be published.
This is a rather curious development. Are the pre/post patch versions freely downloadable ?
To be honest, I don't know, but if the patch is freely downloadable, let's face it, the "details" are there to anyone with a disassembler, anyway. This kind of legal threat achieves nothing other than to make legit researchers fearful about being sued if they find and publish security issues - even if they do so in a responsible manner. In such a climate security research will be driven underground - which is where the "good guys" really don't want it to be.
Cheers, David Litchfield Research Scientist NGSSoftware Ltd http://www.ngssoftware.com/
