Fifth Estate Investigates Hackers 6
DC writes "The fifth estate is a respected documentary show on the CBC in Canada. Tonight they looked at hackers and "cyber" terrorism in general. Some very good info about Computer security (or lack thereof), they also managed to get a microsofty on camera to admit their software is pretty hackable. His defence was that making their software too secure would render it unusable. Anyway, here is the link to the show's home page, which has links to a lot of very interesting and in-depth interviews with various hackers and computer security experts, including two cDc members, authors of the infamous BackOrifice." Well, it sure is good to know that "hackers" and "cyber-terrorists" are equivalent.
Re:CBC goes for sensationalism (Score:1)
I don't know about the others, but according to Linden MacIntyre (the host of the show), they _did_ get ahold of Bruce Schneier - he just didn't appear on camera...
...but I noticed that "Handbook of Applied Cryptography" appeared conspicuously in the background of a couple of the interveiwees' shots... so he was there in spirit, if not in voice
The CBC is a bunch of ratings whores, (Score:2)
All that matters to them is to get enough eyeballs to make the product placement and advert points. So what if a bunch of geeks get inconvienienced by it? They can move to a different town and change their names. "Cyber-terrorists", my ass. Maybe we should start using the term "media-terrorist". It fits.
Having worked for these folks, I can tell you that Don Henly was right. All they want is dirty laundry...
CBC goes for sensationalism (Score:4)
Lots of bits of interviewing hackers and attending an 'information warfare EMT training class' with lots of overheads and laser lights flashing on people's faces as they read about imaginary modes of attack on the North American infrastructure. Duh. I dont have lasers shooting out of my 'puter onto my face (nor do I wear mirrorshades inside) as I track down one of our users scanning the net...
There was a bit of Microsoft bashing, which is great because the media is usually really loathe to expose any of this. The microsoft guy was right tho - if they spend billions on security and make computers hard to use because SECURITY IS A PROCESS THAT INVOLVES HUMANS AND HUMAN PROTOCOLS, then they'd be losing money w.r.t those who dont spend it and make their stuff easy to use.
The other thing was that I still saw this attitude of "security is all in the computer" and doesnt address the human/procedures factor at all.
It also looked at security as some sort of absolute - not as a process and an 'acceptable risk' level thing that you should design around your personal usage of computers, but as some sort of all or nothing. "Someone can ALWAYS hack you anyway, so why bother."
The only completely cogent experts in the segment were of course the CoDC, who I suspect were sound-bited to tone down their statements. IMHO they didnt (get to) say enough about how bad Microsoft is and how their marketing is tuned to keep people (and the govt) from investigating their liability in providing a modicum of security in their software.
I dont know why they didnt get ahold of Peter Newmann, Solar Designer (who is even a canadian), Elias Levy or Bruce Schneier for comments - guess they dont know who they are, and might comment above the public's heads anyway.
The other thing, earlier on in the show, was talk of all these large companies being hacked via the net and that the net was making it more difficult to secure critcal systems. NEVER ONCE did anyone
ever question why these 'critical systems' were even attached to the internet.
By the same token, one poor hapless user at home had this australian forceplay an ominous WAV file
thru his computer at him. The guy was commenting "but what could I do? NOTHING. I could NOT stop this guy. He HAD me." -- Mebbe yank the damn modem out of the wall? Turn off the machine? Duh?
The chat afterwards on the CBC server, which was down quite often (They run IIS there, duh, so it
was either hacked or crashed) was pretty boring, with the moderators forwarding the less interesting questions, but I guess those that the general public, woefully uneducated (partially the media's fault) would be likely to ask. The public channel was full of people bragging about their hacks (isnt there an efnet chan for that?) or with people asking "can you teach me to hack please?".
I left soon after in disgust (and Law and Order was on - I needed some good tv to wash the bad out
Did you watch the program? (Score:1)
I did, and that's _not_ the impression I got at all..
It was a pretty good news coverage - they showed both sides pretty well, and there was an awful lot of (deserved) MS-bashing..
About the only issue I had with it was the lack of response to some US DOJ officials comment about (white-hat) hackers and Burglars.. (It would have been nice to see a response that someone who doesn't steal isn't a burglar..)
Not all hackers are "evil" (Score:1)
A different breed of hackers are writing the Linux kernel modifications and doing what they can to make Linux a better OS.
Others, like me, are White Hat Hackers, just learning how hacks/cracks work and not using them for descructive purposes. We are trying to learn to use C++, Perl, Javascript and other languages better and patch up security holes when we find them.
I got a Yahoo Club [yahoo.com] for those interested in talking more about it and other topics. All are welcomed to join, just no flaming of other users.
Re:Not all hackers are "evil" (Score:2)
Mostly, I think this guy is a blowhard (he's got this misguided impression that you should require a license to write software, among other things,) however this quote is pretty good - it shows a little bit of cluefulness...