DOJ Fights Hackers with Brainwashing 257
OKolzig37 writes "I won't even bother to comment on this one: Justice Department begins antihacking campaign. Oh brother. " Now kindergarten classes (the campaign is targeted to kids 12 and under, obviously an extreme threat to national security) will be visited by McGruff the Crime Dog, Smokey the Bear, and Mitnick, the Anti-Hacking Gerbil. Maybe someone should tell the DOJ that the reason for our current national prosperity is a generation of kids that grew up...hacking. The original press release is online also.
Oh yay (Score:1)
Security through Stupidity??? (Score:1)
If they want to resolve the security issues that they have, why don't they put the money towards training some of the government bureaucrats basic network/computer security protocol.
Hey even better, why don't they get rid of also of those really, really stupid crypto export regulations. Then maybe progress on things like IPsec and so on can continue without any problems with export laws and so forth....
More education! It worked for the "War on Drugs".. (Score:1)
Of course, that's the same "war" that brought you the wonderful comparisons that pot is as bad for you as heroin.. The war on hacking will be just as successful. Why not put all that money into getting systems more secure in the first place!
When I was 13 and just getting into modems and the like, if something like this went on, I would have gone even more hardcore into hacking activities than I already was :). So maybe this is good thing! All of those playing with unpassworded SCO boxen and HP gear contibuted directly to where I am today. Mind you - I didn't get caught. Nor am I american (ah, the great white north).
Mind you, they should promote giving kids Linux and other multiuser systems that they are free to play around on - those things just didn't exist in the late 80's and early 90's when I was learning. Rather than government-sponsored brainwashing programs (which work until kids wanna rebel as a result of excessive hormones), this money would be better spent on giving each school a linux machine and saying "Here, fsck with this box, we have it backed up.."
The world watches on with amusement..
Another Canadian AC
Re:Two questions (Score:1)
Microsoft (Score:1)
Would you want your kids being programmed by the likes of MS and AOL?
--
politics as usual (Score:1)
C'mon - 300K won't go very far toward their goal, but it earns the current occupants of the Justice Department (and, of course, their boss (the Molester-in-Chief)) a lot of good publicity at others' expense.
That surely makes it worthwhile for them, though it won't do the rest of us any good.
The DOJ should hire Spaf... (Score:1)
...that way Spaf can teach the kiddies proper nettiquette while he's crushing the ability to think for one's self out of them.
I can just see it now...
Yeah, I've seen the future, and the future is Happynet...
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Naw man, it's called SOCIAL ENGINEERING! (Score:1)
Bah. /me waves hand in a dismissive fashion.
When I finally have enough balls to consult on my own, I'm going to put the H word right on my goddamn business card, and I've said as much to every suit (or otherwise) who asks me what I want to do with my life. Sure, I get the inevitable "you're a WHAT?" from the norms, but hey, Thats Fine By Me. I get a chance to tell them what I do, where I see technology going, how I can help them get Useful And Interesting Things Done. If people get confused by the Hacker/Cracker dichotomy, I spread the Ethic: Think for yourself, use what you know, learn what you don't, and try to understand everything. Don't hurt anyone and have fun, because otherwise it just isn't worth it (way too boring sometimes, like right now as I'm trying to get glibc installed, only I'm doing it by hand).
IT'S SPIN, BABY!!! This is mediawar, and we can fight, too. Hell, we can even win. Yeah, I'm a hacker. I do interesting shit with a computer. Let me tell you about it. Etc. That's called Good Advertising, thankyouverymuch, because the word hacker not only connotes DARKEST EVIL, but massive sk1lz. And I'm "such a NICE boy" that people forget about the EVIL part, and as soon as I can socially engineer them for about five minutes, I have them well on the way to being convinced that I'm pretty damn smart, QED.
The ultimate exploit. No sticky mess to clean up, no syslogs to erase. The pure power of communication, which is why I'm into computers in the first place. Take THAT, Madison Avenue!
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Re:This hacker/cracker thing must end! (Score:1)
"warriors" do you think that US Marines might object? Language is living, absolutely, but that doesn't mean that words can'tbe used incorrectly.
Look at the confusion most people have regarding "drugs" and "narcotics", thanks to our "war on drugs". But the *real* authorities on these subjects, the medical establishment, still uses them correctly. Is part of the government's plan to deliberately confuse hacker & cracker, or are they just stupid?
Re:Brainwashing?! Oh no! (Score:1)
This is equivalent to the Chinese term "kung fu",
which properly translates as "one who has achieved mastery thru much hard work".
Re:Ok, now I'm really pissed.. (Score:1)
Now we have a new "war on hacking", even tho we all know that hacking is just playing and a search for excellence. Who's gonna write their programs?
The M$ marketing department?
- freehand, a proud user of drugs(coffee) and
a hacker wannabee
Um... brainwashing? (Score:1)
Unlike, say, DARE, which does nothing but propagate an already unbalanced, defective, and freedom-restricting profit racket set up by the gov't, this issue actually makes some kind of sense.
Drop the hacker/cracker nonsense, first off. I will use cracker in this for clarity, that is all.
Most of us, I think, despise crackers (barring the AC k1dd1es). I, personally, would welcome a program in which someone told kids "Hey, this is bad, you don't want to be like this", if the "this" in that sentence was a little punk hax0r d00d. Again, unlike the War on Some Drugs, the War on Crackers is legitimate... as LONG as it stops at "don't do this", and doesn't branch into further persecution which *is* unwarranted.
I am usually very radically anti-government on issues such as this, but in this case, as long as it stays at "kids, this is bad, don't so this", big deal. I'd rather they spent the tax dollars they rob from me on that than on some pork barrel project sponsered by Senator Clitus for his little backwards hometown.
This could actually be good... (Score:1)
Re:truly alarming (Score:1)
Philby - whoops! that was long before the Reaganite era - 1940's. Ames - a better example, but these are spies, turning coat on other spies. Really, little to do with you or me. The fact still stands that "terrorism" in the 1980's as put forth by the popular media in the US was largely a fabrication, right along with the "drug war". "Terrorism" is simply convenient propaganda nomenclature, designed to stir up public fears and get them to support the police force instituted to "fight" it.
And then, what of US sponsored "terror" in third world coutries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Indonesia, Viet Nam)? Is terror "ok for me, but not for you"? It works both ways. The greatest madnesses of cultures are not apparent to them until much later.
Well, naturally the KGB was trying to stir up as much crap as they could, but WRT Viet Nam, they simply didn't need to. There was enough popular sentiment that they simply needn't get involved, so your assertion is dubious, to say the least. God forbid that the Viet Nam war might be considered unjust and odious (it was). You blithely ignore that most of the anti war sentiment had nothing to do with the KGB.
Pay an think tank enough money and they will tell you anything. That's what they're for. What does "could work" mean? Total global devastation?
I believe any honest student of Soviet history could not possibly come to any conclusion that the system was facing imminent and total collapse starting with the Brezhnev era.
The problem is that there is virtually no other way to communicate. People like Ralph Nader are almost silent in comparison to the media. As I said, the whole "problem" could be alleviated by corporations placing uncensored feedback forums on their sites. Instead we get the same one-way pipeline of marketing drivel supported by government sponsored "crackdowns". The gripe I have (which you did not even address, preferring to tangentize on government spies) is that vandals (a misdemeanor) are being persecuted as terrorists (a capital crime). The rebellion is incohate, groping, untutored and largely even unprincipled. But I'm not buying into the propaganda. The net isn't theirs, and their unwavering arrogance warrants action.
one more thing (Score:1)
I forgot something.
The "science" of marketing has left rational discourse behind long ago. It's no longer a matter of which product is better or why one should buy it or how it could be useful to you. What does reason mean in an environment where it isn't GOOD/BAD or QUALITY/CRAP but GEEKY/SEXY and COOL/DORKY?
You have to fight fire with fire. Fighting the brazenly irrational market culture, which produces tons of useless trash by the shipfull, with rational argument is pointless. It's like using a spitball against an aircraft carrier. So yes, I support web site defacement, as well as bulletin board defacement, and whatever else you can think of. These thing have the effect of jarring one's conciousness slightly, hopefully enough to show it the absurdity of the image driven and completely irrational intellectual obscenity of the marketeer.
truly alarming (Score:1)
Interesting how dissenters and defacers of corporate web sites are now deemed "terrorists". Of course anyone who thinks knows that the "communist terrorist" scares of the Reagan years and beyond is largely a fiction of the corporate media and its government supported mechanisms and popular literature (Tom Clancy, Rambo movies, anyone?): exactly parallel to the "Red Scare" of the 50's. The language used in this article is positively alarming, and is supported by our governments treatment of these "vandals": they actually are being persecuted as terrorists criminals, not vandals, and are given the stiff penalties that would normally be reserved for hardened criminals. This is pure propaganda: designed to induce fear in the public to promote and excuse the incarceration and villification of the "menace". To be sure, there are criminals using cracking skills for truly immoral purposes, but the propaganda model is meant to obscure that - so that the public cannot make the distiction - that's the point.
"True Hackers" can dismiss crackers as "script kiddies" all they want (and much of the characterizations are true), but dissent is a healthy part of a democracy. It is a good and necessary thing. It's not as if there isn't anything to be pissed about in our society. I personally like the fact that kids are defacing corporate web sites! It should be rigorously pointed out that most of the cracking done is harmless defacement and meant to embarass and deride, not destroy. This is culture jamming, not criminal activity. Anyone who subscribes to the "defaced" mailing list knows that.
I guess the final solution would be to dope everyone up on television, ritalin and zoloft (the drugs that our system condones out of hand of course - just don't smoke pot!!!) so that they just can't think anymore, a country of bleary eyes zombies getting their buttons pushed. It is only so long before the mind rebels against this sort of horrid nonsense.
The corps need to realize that the internet is NOT television. The days of manufactured infotainment (what a horrid term - I didn't come up with it) are numbered, they know that, and they're trying with all their might to turn the internet into a more muscular version of television, a vast theme park and entertainment delivery system for the mind.
The vertically integrated modern media corporation truly represents the greatest threat to free speech ever in our supposedly "free" society. They need to be cracked. They would have us think that the true dissenters of our society are the puffy lipped, slender, androgenous models that grace the slick pages of Details and GAP storefronts. Pretty soon we won't know better.
They need to know that we will talk back, by any means necessary. This is just the powerful plutocrat, disgusted that people have found a new weapon against their methods of order, authority and control (what charter of our country gave them any authority, anyway?). Personally, I'm tired of people having any power over me whatsoever.
The solution here is for crackers to organize better. What bother me a little is not the "horror of defaced sites" (OH MY GOD!) but the problem that most of this dissent is inarticulate and untutored. We are now presented with the amusing spectacle of the corporate media (I refuse to give them the moniker "Free Press" - they don't deserve it) telling us that the "black hat" hackers are the ones ridiculing the corporate machinery and the "white hat" hackers are the gainfully employed citizens ... er ... consumers using their "security skills" for the "greater good". I believe someone once said that if one looks hard enough, you will find the one who profits from something, and therein lies the spark that powers the machinery. If there was any honesty to this, the corporations would have uncensored feedback forums on their web sites, not the same bland conduits of market babble that we're so used to from the traditional media.
Now it's fairly obvious that they're lobbying the federal government to protect themselves - who will in turn, in an ironic twist, use our tax dollars to launch a media campaign in order to protect them. The sad truth is that there really isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it but keep cracking web sites. But that's our "democracy" for you.
Re:Wrong kind of prevention (Score:1)
The worst part of computer science education below college is that the teachers do not know how to program at all. I don't know how to remedy this, I wish I did. Even an independent study in computer science would be better than what is offered now.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox [themes.org].
ad campaign (Score:1)
im here to tell you that breaking into me is bad. i hate it when you change the way im set up.
you should leave that to people who know better.
people like microsoft, a corporate sponsor of the C.A.R.E. (Computer Abuse Re-Education) program.
So please, don't try to learn how i work.
What you don't know can't hurt you!
and just remember k1dd13z.
just s4y n0! to l33t h4xx0R sploits!
Hackers responsible for national prosperity? (Score:1)
I was actually expelled from high school for cracking the academic computer. I cracked the academic computer because I had pretty much exhausted the learning that I could do on it without cracking security (or so I thought). I became involved in the Free Software movement largely as a result of this - I don't think any student should see cracking as the only remaining productive use for their creative energy once they feel they exhausted the possibilities provided by their local environment. In joining the Free Software movement, and doing my best to provide cool stuff for fledgling hackers to hack on, I feel that I am providing an alternate creative path.
What the DOJ is doing is kind of silly, but I don't think it's wrong. They would be better advised to approach students constructively, instead of just propogandizing. Of course, propogandizing is arguably cheaper...
Sigh.
Re:On the side... (Score:1)
I suppose it depends on the dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/ [m-w.com] gives both of these definitions among others.
Re:Wrong kind of prevention (Score:1)
A couple years after I left I hear they're finally getting a CS class, in C++ no less. Which surprised the hell out of me, since in my experience my school is as technologically inept as they come (they apparently consider changing the default start page of Netscape on a teacher's machine to be some 3l33t exploit. Seriously! They even offered me a position with them after I did that too. Which I politely declined (-: ).
Maybe they finally got somebody with half a brain in there - they now have relatively new PII machines (versus old 486 Win3.1 and even more ancient Mac systems when I was there), and are actually using them for something!
Re:hmmm. (Score:1)
Pravda (Score:1)
Teaching Pascal (Score:1)
It's a toy language. It's nice to start with if you don't have a lot of experience. Sure, you're not going to use it for any serious hacking, but it's nice to learn the basics with.
Yeah, I learned how to code in modula 2 (similar to Pascal) and while I cursed at it at the time for being so bloody picky about everything, looking back at it it's been good, because it teaches you to code in a halfway decent manner.
Right now they're teaching Java to people with no experience whatsoever. Imagine that, you don't know jack shit about coding and you get Java thrown at you! Kinda overwhelming, no?
Those toy languages are good for introducing people to programming. Then once you're capable of writing a bit of non-trivial stuff in such a language, and you want to start doing some real coding, you start using a real language.
Yeah, Right (Score:1)
The whole debate about whether the DOJ's education program will squash future hackers, or just stop them from being crackers, is a moot point. It's funny, by debating this, you give the DOJ way too much credit in their ability to affect the minds of kids.
I've been through a few animal-mascot 'education' programs in my time, and I thought they were as dumb then as I do now. The fact is that the people who concieve these campaigns have no understanding of the intelligence of the students they are trying to reach. Instead, they learn all the wrong lessons from Sesame Street (whose success was due to the respect with which it treated its viewers) and give us talking dogs with hackneyed, condescending messages like "Kids, say no to drugs," and hope we listen. However, the real message of these programs is "You can't be allowed to know the truth, so we'll lie to you with puppets," and most kids can see right through that at a very young age.
What makes this program even dumber is the target audience: potential crackers. The defining characteristics of crackers, even at that age, are high intelligence and a serious opposition to authority. The former means that they will see right to the heart of what the program is trying to do, and the latter means that they will totally reject the program once they realize where it's coming from (the authorities that they can't stand). If anything, this is likely to encourage them by giving them a target, a way of expressing their defiance.
Remember the "Just Say No" campaign? This totally unsuccessful program is the ultimate example of a government education program. Built on misguided stereotypes and incorrect, unverified theories (in that case, the notion that everybody got started on drugs because of peer pressure), and implemented heavy-handedly by beuraucrats and school adminsitrators who didn't even care if it worked, it had the net effect of boring a lot of students with tedious lectures, and making a lot of them start wondering what was so special about drugs, that the grown-ups were so afraid of them.
Of course, nobody can oppose such an obviously righteous program, and so the "Just Say No" campaign was universally hailed as the salvation of our kids, never mind that it doesn't work. The DOJ's anti-cracker campaign will meet with the same fate.
Sounds familiar... (Score:1)
The psychology of cracking is the matter (Score:1)
me a reason for the cracking fever we see today.
The main problem is not education. I saw even people on their 50's cracking computers. Nor it is culture, race or age. The problem goes around a psychological problem I would call the "Forbidden Fruit".
The recept for it is quite simple. Give a system
with several restrictions. They can be directly forced or be just "features". And secure all this with a relatively superficial security system.
This will forcefully create a wave of cracking. The level this "crimewave" may grow depends on how juicy are the results of circumventing the security.
Frankly I saw cracking waves at different levels of "prizes". In one case, when the relation restriction/prize was quite high, the cracking wave rose to levels that almost destroyed all the network. The only two choices to save the situation were either to establish administrative fascism, recurring even to Law, or to remake the whole conception of work.
We choose for remaking the whole thing. It was hard but the cracking wave dropped by nearly 10 times.
We didn't choose administrative fascism more for pragmatic reasons rather than moral. Frankly parallel networks suffered a lot with it. Besides
there was a need to be politically correct and technically sincere. These restrictions were mostly created from technical problems. And here we had some serious responsability to solve them.
Unfortunately the first type of system and OSes didn't give a clear chance to solve these problems. In some point we were also cracking one OS to solve some of these problems
Re:remeber: Hackers != script kiddies. (Score:1)
Also, on a side note, In my experence, High School Network admins, chooses a somebody who moderatly knows how to use a computer, as thier assistant, but they keep the hackers in their back pocket to help them out, find security holes, and fix the problems before anybody notices, because they will be the ones to notice the problems first
Re:Who cares??? (Score:1)
They need to recognize that they start a lot of this stuff too young. The average first grader's computer usage is limited to reader rabbit. By 6th grade a kid could concievably be interested in cracking, but even that seems young. It strikes me as something that's much more of a problem in high school, and possibly middle school.
I would not be nearly as concerned if they started a progrm like this in middle school.
Maybe we should start our own program (Score:1)
We could teach young children how to use strong encryption and steganography to hide their interest in computers from their parents.
As a side benefit we'd be brainwashing them into encouraging less export restrictions on crypto when they grow up!
How successful can this really be? (Score:1)
For example, read Consience of a Hacker, and think how it would appeal to someone who felt that way.
Maybe... (Score:1)
Discouraging youngsters (Score:1)
I hope they don't tell children things like "If you see someone who's on the computer too much, or they don't just look at websites your teacher tells you to look at, they're probably a hacker. Go tell Mom and Dad and your principal at your school."
Saying things like this will only discourage people who don't want to get labeled as a "hacker." This sort of approach may end up discouraging someone who could end up being the next Linus Torvalds.
It won't deter anyone though, and for the ones who would end up cracking systems later on anyway, it probably might just instill curiosity in them at an earlier age. If you leave a kid in a room and tell them "I'm going to leave this room now, and while I'm gone, don't push this red button," you'll probably return later to find that the kid pushed it because you told him not to.
All I think this will do is discourage good kids and encourage the bad ones even more.
Re:hmmm. (Score:1)
If you don't see the Fnords they can't eat you.
security and cyberspace (Score:1)
The cyberspace street lights are being removed because they help the thieves see our unlocked doors The thieves have been ghostlike and hard to see in the past, and now we blind everyone and ourselves in hopes of confusing those ghosts. I can't watch the traffic on my computer or my net. I can't browse DNS. I can't query sendmail daemons to debug the spelling of addresses. I can't finger. And the list grows and grows. My ability to see and correct my and my client's environment has been severely eroded in the name of security. (?!?)
But that makes the ghosts even harder for accidental witnesses to see. Unlike breaking in your front door in real life, where witnesses are hard to avoid, cyberspace is becoming more and more opaque, and cyberspace crimes harder and harder to witness by (nosey!) bystanders.
So! Given these trends, what other choice is there but to try to prevent the kids from doing this stuff in the first place?
If you want to fight the new puritanism, my suggestion is to instead build tools so bystanders can easily see all the script kiddies and their elders running around poking into places where they shouldn't. And start re-building a culture where they get redirected in more positive directions, instead of getting more and more punished at younger and younger ages.
How active is a script kiddy going to be when e "sees" hundreds or thousands of disapproving eyes staring and commenting on their every move?
An ounce of the right stuff (Score:1)
One of my friends started working on this recently. He cruised chat rooms and other places, contacting kids and offering them accounts on his Linux server, so long as they learned to use the machine and observed common courtesy and proper capitalization. He got several to accept his generousity, and he's given some lessons on, e.g. C. Unfortunately, he hasn't a whole lot of time to spend recruiting and teaching. He's got the machine--if you could help, you'd be doing everyone a favor (including yourself). There's a basic page up at qapcom.twistedmatrix.com [twistedmatrix.com].
The 'net allows us to share information not only in the form of code, but lessons as well. More of the latter will mean more of the former.
remeber: Hackers != script kiddies. (Score:1)
This kind of campaing probably won't stop the people who just download hacking tools and blindly apply them on every site until one falls. There are just too many a-holes like that round.
Here's an alternative idea: how about teaching hacker ethics? IMHO we need more "good hackers" who after finding a hole, publish it without first fucking up some website with dumb slogans and pr0n. Of course, the targer group should be a littele more mature (13, even 14-year olds ;-).
Shouldn't selling crackable software be illegal? (Score:1)
One problem with that... (Score:1)
While I'm not exactly yer cheery optimistic sort, defeatist attitudes like the above just give the bastards what they want. Power.
They won't get it from me without a fight. That is somehing I can do about it.
That and voting. There's got to be a few "mappers" running for office. Or at least some "packers" with the brains to delegate the important tasks to the mappers. Vote for them.
What th'?!?! (Score:1)
It most certainly is. Shouldn't be, but is. What are you going to do about it? (a suggestion - find out which school administrators support this kind of nonsense, and then vote accordingly in school board elections. If more Kansans had done this, they wouldn't have had that evolution fiasco.)
Humanity as a whole does not like to be
controlled, we like to think for ourselves.
What's this "we" sh1t? You like to think for yourself, and I like to think for myself, but we're not all of humanity. I fear that too much of humanity is content to think what they're told what to think. It's so much easier....
Didja see who's sponsoring this? (Score:1)
Why am I not surprised? Maybe because I know that D.A.R.E is sponsored in a big way by the tobacco industry. This anti-hacking (why'd they have to use that word?) movement seems a close parallel. Just say no to drugs...except the ones provided by our sponsors. Just say no to computers and software... except the ones provided by our sponsors.
MCSE's... (Score:1)
C++ is what's being taught in High School... (Score:1)
I'm a senior in high school right now, and I took AP Computer Science last year (the first year that they taught C++ instead of Pascal), and I'm glad I took it. Not only did I learn a lot, I also got to know the school's network administrator who offered me a job over the summer and I'm still working for him doing stuff with our school's computers.
-OnyxArrow
Re:Wrong kind of prevention (Score:1)
I never even had the option of BASIC. In grade school, LOGO was the only language offered. In high school i didn't bother with the class [yes, singular], IIRC it was programming "mac hypercard" or something like that.
Besides, i taught myself BASIC at age 10, some basic 8086 assembler a few years later, C after i got on the 'net and someone gave me an old Borland DOS compiler... Spent my time in math class programming games into my TI-85.
The schools say they don't have the money to spend on more than one or two computer classes, and they have to target those classes to the majority of [semi-computer-illiterate] students. "How to use Windows 95 and M$ Office" and such.
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Reminds me of DARE... (Score:1)
IIRC, it was because the kids thought they could handle experimenting since they had the class...
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Re:This hacker/cracker thing must end! (Score:1)
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Re:Wrong kind of prevention (Score:1)
It's all about money. Most schools don't have enough to hire even a part-time CS teacher, so at best they have to rely on some Math teacher that has a minor interest in computing. Combine that with the fact that buisnesses tend to pay several times better than schools, and almost no one with a real CS background is interested in teaching.
It's the same thing with Theatre in many schools, an English teacher ends up heading the program because there's not enough money to hire someone to specialize. Although the situation isn't quite as bad, since there's more teachers with a theater interest and background than teachers with a CS interest and background. And it's easier to accomodate both beginning and advanced students in theater than CS. ("I still don't understand binary/octal/hexidecimal!" for the 10th time. Teacher has to explain. I take a nap. For the whole week.)
It seems to me that CS work below college level is truely independant study, since it's completely independant of school.
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True, but... (Score:1)
However, look at the terminology they're using. "Hacking is bad." "Kids shouldn't hack." Etc. So all these kids are brainwashed into thinking that hacking (our definition as well as cracking, since the DOJ makes no distinction) is bad. Then micros~1 starts an ad campaign saying Linux, FreeBSD, and any other Open Source OS is a hacker OS--technically true, but not when the incorrect meaning of hacker is inferred. So all these kids think hacker==bad, Open Source==hackers, so Open Source==bad and by M$ products.
Yes, that is a little extreme of a prediction. Most predictions are inherently extreme, those that aren't tend to be widely ignored.
As a side note, will Mitnick the Gerbil stop script kiddies any more than McGruff the Dog stops crime? Far too many kids do drugs, hurt and steal even with McGruff's messages...
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Re:Who cares??? (Score:1)
Note: Previous statement was partially tounge in cheek. Personally, I wish there WERE more civilized people on the net. This probably isn't the way to do it.
Re:Electronic Property is no Real Property (Score:1)
How is someone cracking your system and looking through your files any different than someone breaking into your house and looking through your filing cabinet? (ethically, that is.)
It's true that intellectual electronic property can be copied without denying it of the producer, but this is quite different than saying that its ok for anyone to steal someone else's work or information. People have the rights to their own work. This is what allows you to put your work under the GPL, for instance. But regardless of what all the socialists will tell you, you do not have the right to my work. That's the difference.
Oh, and BTW, This holds equally as well for any kind of information digital or otherwise.
so does this mean.. (Score:1)
considering that any kid from 6th grade up starts making up his/her own mind on what they're gonna do with their time, the idea of "brainwashing" seems a bit extravagant.. sure, you'll have the usual goodie-2-shoes being nice and polite and following a big dog's advice about crime and a teddy bear's advice about fire, but most others already went beyond what their parents and teachers tell them.
hell, how many of us belong to that 98% of high schoolers who know the basic way to get through school: nod and pretend your listening to the teacher while you draw on a notebook or stare off into the wall...
SOME kids will be influenced, but they would've been influenced to one thing or another anyway.. the true creative ones will always find amusement in the futile attempts by their elders to control them.
Re:The new west (Score:1)
Today hackers can bring down giant, multinational banking systems, brokerage houses and even TRW. So you have to ask yourself, do you REALLY want a joy-riding hormone handicapped teen drooling over your financial records?
No, I would rather the institution involved run a secure and stable OS, with a trained admin who know what he/she is doing! Any business whose records/databases can be accessed by a teenaged script kiddy deserves to be out of business in a hurry.
My only suggestion would be: While the DOJ is all hot-to-trot on preventing hacking they might want to toss in some additional anti-drug messages as well :-)
Um, let's not and say we did. This whole "Government as Mummy and Daddy" business has gone WAYYYY too far as it is. How about Personal Responsibility? I know it is out of fashion these days, but it's a Really Neat concept ;)
I would rather have these kids testing the limits of the software that is in use, finding the bugs and security holes now, rather than a real threat; like maybe some terrorist wacko bent on destroying the Great Satan, finding the same...
Re:Wrong kind of prevention (Score:1)
> enough to hire even a part-time CS teacher, so
> at best they have to rely on some Math teacher
> that has a minor interest in computing. Combine
> that with the fact that buisnesses tend to pay
> several times better than schools, and almost
> no one with a real CS background is interested
> in teaching.
Plus the fact that most colleges don't offer a degree specializing in CS. I actually want to teach CS on the HS level, but I have to get a degree teaching math and just fill in my electives with CS stuff. True, it increases my desirability, but I'd rather have CS be my main focus, with math on the side then the other way around.
Hackerz???? (Score:1)
Re:ethics (Score:1)
Hurting people is wrong.
Helping people is right.
ethics (Score:1)
At the very least simple ethics should be brought back. Teach choices with consequences and the difference between right and wrong.
Re:Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers* (Score:1)
That was not my read of this at all. The reporting of the DOJ program as targeting would-be hackers is, I think, correct, since this is exactly what the DOJ program is going to do. No matter how much we scream and holler that hacker != cracker, the common perception is that hacker == cracker. If the the DOJ program is actually targeting would-be crackers, but calling 'em hackers, then what it really does is further demonize hacking.
I can see it now... The "War on Drugs" becomes the "War on Hackers" and half of us end up in jail for "intent to distribute" illicit information.
Ironically... (Score:2)
Why is industry and the DoJ trying to go against the desires of government, the Senate, and the National Security Agency? And what has industry been feeding the DoJ to provoke this seriously misguided adventure?
Re:Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers* (Score:2)
Now let's get to the hacker vs. cracker argument. Using "cracker" to refer to those who break into computers is incorrect. The term was coined in 1984, according to the Jargon file, to describe these types of people, years after the term "hacker" was already being used to refer to them. I personally continue to use "hacker" to refer to those who break security and deserve the moniker (such as L0pht Heavy Industries), and "script kiddie" to refer to those who merely download some exploits and run them. "Cracker" when applied to computers refers to the extremely talented asm coders who remove the copy protection from software (usually shareware), and hence the term is not related to this discussion.
Finally, These people you call "crackers" have indeed greatly advanced computers, and not just in the field of security. Many people who had a great influence on the development of computers became interested in computers while teenagers through phreaking/hacking. Steve Wozniak, who created the Apple I and Apple ][ personal computers in his garage, comes to mind. During the 1970s he was involved in "red boxing," the technique of using tones to trick payphones into thinking you'd inserted payment. He designed and built red boxes out of radio shack parts, and later moved on to designing and building personal computers. There are countless other influential people who got their start in similar ways.
You need to read up on some history before making uninformed statements.
Cracking and the ability to debug (Score:2)
A question.. (Score:2)
DOJ to Sponsor Anti-Cracking program
The Justice department announced today that it would sponser a program to discourage children from attempting to circumvent the security of other people's computers. Press release available here.
The only 'brainwashing' I see here is in the
So far, the main reaction I've seen is fear that the DOJ will lump all slightly 'non-conformist' computer uses in with script kiddies and crackers. However, I see no evidence for this in the press release, apart from the fact that the 'wrong term' was used (and seriously, how many people would understand if they had substituted "crackers" for every instance of "hackers"?)
Consider this. Most young children don't deal well with ambiguities. How often do you hear them told "don't get near the fire -- unless you don't touch any of the coals or the flames; you can get close enough to warm your hands up, but don't burn them -- and if a stick is burning on one end you can hold that end but not the other!"
I may be about to tromp on lots of child-development theory, but I think that children and early adolescents tend to form very polarized opinions about things which become more complex as they gain experience and knowledge enough to recognize where the ambiguities fall. I believe that in the absence of a continuous stream of information tailored to continue this black-and-white picture of things, this early opinionation decays, having served its purpose already. What purpose is that? Simple. Keeping children from blundering into fires, from doing things, the gray areas of which they are unable to calculate.
And on top of that, the sort of stuff discussed in the article -- particularly spam and computer cracking -- isn't much of a gray area; on the contrary, these are almost universally seen as negative activities. (with the possible exception of breaking-and-informing -- "free security audits" -- but I don't think that happens much in practice. It's more: (1) A breaks into B's computer, messes things up; (2) B gets mad at A; (3) A says "hey, I was trying to help!")
Daniel
Hold on a minute... (Score:2)
Let's wait and see what these assemblies actually involve before passing judgement. Hell, who knows, perhaps they might actually teach the kids some online manners. I do hope they get the hacker/cracker distinction right (they probably won't though). I agree that this sort of thing isn't the government's job, but in an age where the vast majority of parents are too damn lazy and/or selfish to even teach their kids right from wrong (and spend time with the kids), someone has to do it. The government's far from the ideal choice, indeed they're the last choice I'd make for someone to teach people right from wrong, but until we get a generation of parents who care (I'm hoping the next one will have more sense than this one) I really see no other alternative.
Re:Oh, boy, more tax dollars for brainwashing.... (Score:2)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Aieee! (Score:2)
This isn't to say I don't have other objections to his campaign, of course, and I doubt I'd feel an more positive about an anti-cracking campaign...
--
Ian Peters
Re:I can see it now.... (Score:2)
Why not just solve the general case? (Score:2)
Parents should teach/show kids the importance (and the benefits!) of courtesy and consideration for others. Do that, and as a consequence, specific violations like spam, cracking, etc. will be seen for what they are: something that assholes do.
But do we really need or trust government to teach kids "Don't be an asshole" (to cover cracking) or "Don't be stupid" (to cover drugs) or other non-academic lessons? I think it's time to get government out of this business altogether. Then maybe some parents will no longer be confused about what lessons are their responsibility, and what lessons are society's. Everyone has to eventually face up to the fact: "It's up to me. If I fail, it won't get done. If I don't teach my kid, he will suck." That's the case anyway, but our education system tries to hide it, by making false claims that they are going to take care of the situation. And every time another one of these stupid liberal programs comes, the lie just gets thicker and more established, and it becomes that much easier for parents to be tricked into believing that it's not their problem.
---
Have a Sloppy day!
Re:STOP WHINING ABOUT THIS!!! (Score:2)
I only needed to clarify the hacker vs. cracker thing because the slashdot summary confused the two terms by saying that hackers are responsible for the current prosperity in computers... implying that the DOJ was going against hackers. The DOJ is going against crackers, not hackers, and it is hackers, not crackers, that are responsible for the current computer age.
Yes, it is a play on words, but my point is not the play on words itself; only that to criticize the DOJ program as attacking the foundation of the current computer boom is misguided and a confusion as to what those two terms mean.
Personally, I don't really care about the whole cracker/hacker thing. This is one particular case however where confusion about the two has led to misunderstanding a fundamental issue.
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Re:Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers* (Score:2)
Second, my original post has nothing to do with whether the DOJ program is effective or desirable. It has to do with the slashdot summary of the article being misguided in saying that the DOJ attack against crackers is an attack against the foundation of the current computer prosperity (i.e. hackers). These are two different things.
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This is gonna backfire... (Score:2)
Hell, this might ever be good for the computer industry down the line. Those 15 year old cracker morons always realize down the line that they are retarded. Then and there, they either give up or actually become hackers. With more kids going down this road, there will be more script kiddies. That equals more stupid attacks on computers, which eventually means vendors may fix software or write it better in the first place. Then, years from now, some of those same kids could be working for those vendors. End result, software quality goes up. More kids become crackers. More adults become hackers. And the whole plan backfired, but still had positive results.
---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
Respect for privacy ... (Score:2)
That said, I suspect there are bigger problems that lead to cracker behaviour than a simple education campaign can solve. I recall a survey that noted crackers had a tendency to be poorly socialised with peers and come from broken households. Plastering over the results and ignoring the causes seem a little like taking the easy path. Also, given kids' usual attitude to authority, I wonder how effective any campaign would be, or whether it would make "hacking" cool and thus a legitimate activity for gaining peer respect and bragging rights.
I bet they had grafetti in caveman times as well. Oh well, technology comes and technology goes but social problems remain forever intractable.
LL
Electronic Property is Real Property (Score:2)
While you may debate the effectiveness of DARE and othter programs like it, I would argue that you're comparing apples to apricots.
Finally, I think you should consider that when this article says "hacking" they are definitely implying "cracking." An illegal and unethical act and if you have any doubts about the ethics, you should look up some of Gene Spafford's [purdue.edu] papers on the ethical nature of cracking.
Re:ethics (Score:2)
It should be easy to come up with a common set of ethical rules, as most people can agree on things are right
You hit the nail on the head and diluted your own argument with the word most (I added the emphasis). What if I'm not _most_ people and I happen to disagree with the public school's moral education? (Such as: killing is wrong unless there is a war or self defense, then its ok. Maybe I don't want my kid taught that.)
And no, I disagree with you. *I* will decide how to teach my children about MORALITY _AND_ ETHICS, thank you. YOU may think that "Golden Rule" and "Killing other people" are black/white issues, but maybe I don't.
Ultimately, as a parent it is *my* choice to influence my child's sense of values, morality and ethics. Thank you, but the public school needs to concentrate (and do a much better job, IMO) on fundamentals like math, english, science, phys ed, etc and I'll worry about the finer points that are _far_ more subjective than you seem to imply.
Re:ethics (Score:2)
Re:hmmm. (Score:2)
To get back to the subject at hand, there is nothing wrong with this bias as long as it is recognised and able to be controlled for. The major problem arises with publicly-funded education: the cost of private education rises until only the middle and upper classes can afford to choose what focus their childrens' educations will have (the poor can still get into private, esp. parochial, schools on scholarships and work-study programs, but it's made more difficult). Many who can afford it don'r make their own arrangements regarding education because it's easier just to pack them off in the morning to the same old place.
And so what might have been a minor program in a particular school (annoying, but no big deal) becomes a nation-wide nuisance. Although my major beef is with the term 'hacker.' That poor word is about on its last knees from the abuse it has received at the hands of those who should know better. This will probably drive the last nail in its coffin. Pity, as it was a good word.
Discouraging computer crime, OTOH, is no bigger a deal than discouraging physical crime. The argument that computers should not be left open does have some merit, but exploiting holes is hardly using an open door; it is sneaking through a side window. In a trespass case you might be able to argue that the gate to the yard was open and so you let yourself in, but saying you hopped the wall because you had a ladder would hold no water whatsoever.
Re:Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers* (Score:2)
I'm not so sure about that. AFAIK, there are two distinct groups in the minds of most Americans. There are those who know their way around computers, and there are those who know how to break into computers. They even understand that those in the former group often have the skills of the second.
We call the former "hackers" and the latter "crackers". Most people call the former "techies" or "computer whizzes" and the latter "hackers".
My take on this is that the DOJ is trying to say that the online world is a dangerous place. IMHO, it is, and it is much more dangerous than it was when I was posting on C-128 bboards in the 70s and 80s.
From what I read in the article, McGruff is more interested in keeping kids safe when they play on computers than in keeping them from learning about them. More than anything, this sounds like the computer equivalent of "How to walk around town without getting run over by cars."
This hacker/cracker thing must end! (Score:2)
It's one thing to keep using the term cracker; it's quite another to get so upset when someone uses hacker to mean the same thing.
Then again, where I come from, cracker is an extremely offensive term to refer to white people.
Well, there you go... (Score:2)
Who is going to come out and say that the current war on freedom of information and intellect on the Internet is not another war on drugs now?
It might seem hard to imagine, since drugs and "computer crime" are in essense so different, but crackdown after crackdown after increased punishment after useless law out of touch with reality is taking us right down the same road we have walked with drugs - a road that has done more damage to our society then anything else since the last great war.
I think that as computer networks and the flow of information becomes more and more important to our lives, the danger in the criminalisation of our best and brightest will truly start being dangerous. We risk to do to our networks what the war on drugs has done to our city streets...
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Re:Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers* (Score:2)
No, you are very wrong here.
The actions that the American DOJ wants to stop may be cracking (there are those of us who believe this is an engineering, not a justice question, but forget that for the moment), but in effect campaigns like this are very much attacking the entire hacker mentality.
If we start pushing into our kids minds from the very beginning that playing with computers, security, networking etc is something bad and tabu, then that is what we will get. If parents start being concerned, not encouraging, when their kids are interested in communication, it will hurt the future Linus's much more than the future Mitnick's.
The people that are making these desitions, designing these campaigns, and even the target audiences are not informed enough on the topic to be able to draw the very thin line between experimenting and cracking. It should not be happening this way.
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Re:Who cares??? (Score:2)
Let's take a few examples.
1) Forest fires started by playing with matches are bad. Only you can prevent forest fires.
Sure, forest fires started carelessly are generally bad. But lightening started brush fires can do a lot of good by clearing highly flammable underbrush before it becomes an extreme. Have too much of it and fires burn so hot, it sterilizes the ground and kills seed pods (cones) from conifers.
So, in some cases, fire can be *good*
2) Drugs are bad. Marijuana is a gateway drug. Smoke dope and you're a heroin junkie next month.
No. Marijuana possesion has been probably the most disproportionately punished "crime" in recent memory. The gateway drug evidence is scant. Yes there are some bad ass mofo drugs out there, but weed isn't it.
3) All hacking is bad. If you hack, you suck eggs. Just look at Kevin Mitnick. You don't want to look like *him* do you? Going beyond the GUI is bad. Your government wouldn't approve.
Well, I really don't know how they are going to taylor that. But, I'm pretty sure it will be along the lines of the two earlier examples. Basically, an elephant gun as a flyswatter.
Instead, we (society/schools) ought to be willing to answer questions that stem from curiosity. And answer them honestly.
As for hacking, we ought to distinguish between digging into a system to foster creative problem solving, vs. cracking with an intent to damage data, etc.
Without explaining the subtleties, I think children get a sense they've been lied to when they find out these things aren't as evil as their education made them seem. Hence, a lot more of what they were taught must be bupkiss as well. Game over.
Re:ethics (Score:2)
What *could* be taught, perhaps, is not to take everything at face value, and that in order to live in a society it's typically better to follow at least some basic principles, such as not going mucker and randomly offing people. If they attack society, then they need to realize that it often *will* fight back: the right of choice is paired with responsibility for one's actions.
Re:truly alarming (Score:2)
There was, actually, a significant amount of Soviet-sponsored infiltration into US and British networks and populations. For instance, the KGB subverted intelligence officers (Kim Philby, Aldrich Ames, etc) who attained *high* ranks (Russia Desk, anyone? And Philby, at one time, looked to be the next *head* of British Intel. -- practically the greatest coup a TLA can achieve); scientists (many who sympathized, and deliberately leaked classified nuclear secrets); office staff (such as secretaries to, say, heads of state); activists (the Black Panthers and the Weathermen were, indirectly and covertly, supported by the KGB and friends. Ditto the anti-'Nam movement.); conspiracy theorists (with the KGB attempting to turn them against the CIA); and so forth. And, generally, we did the same, albeit to a usually much less-successful degree. They still do, and so do we.
Incidentally, based on the best estimates at the time regarding conventional and nuclear assets, there were some periods during which our calculations suggested that a Soviet first strike could actually *work*.
As for vandalism, it's a crime. Period. You know the saying that the right to swing a punch stops at the other person's nose? That holds for corporate property, as well. Activists like Nader, who speak and provoke debate, are being a lot more principled than wannabe "protesters" who defile a page, think they're all that, and probably could not even articulate a remotely intelligent argument about why they claim the "right" to do so.
Does somebody who wants to disagree with you have the right to blast your house with a paint-filled water cannon? No? Didn't think so.
The new west (Score:2)
Hacking was fine back in the days when nobody kept any money or credit card numbers on networked servers and the most interesting thing you could do was browse the source code to wampus hunt. Today hackers can bring down giant, multinational banking systems, brokerage houses and even TRW. So you have to ask yourself, do you REALLY want a joy-riding hormone handicapped teen drooling over your financial records?
Hacking today really is far more serious, with the possibility of doing far more damage than it was even a year ago. Way, way, WAY too much money has been pumped into the net (ask redhat and soon slashdot) and millions of people have a very vested interest in ensuring that things run as smoothly as they possibly can.
So yes, kids do need to be educated that breaking into a computer system isn't a game anymore. It may be fun and challenging but it's also illegal (and a felony to boot) and they better learn fast that if they want to play the game they better be willing to pay the price of admission if they're caught.
My only suggestion would be: While the DOJ is all hot-to-trot on preventing hacking they might want to toss in some additional anti-drug messages as well
I can see it now.... (Score:2)
only im america...
Wrong place (Score:2)
Hacking is an abomination against God. Hack and be cast down with Satan and Mitnick. Can I get a Hallelujah and $1,000?
Re:Oh, boy, more tax dollars for brainwashing.... (Score:2)
of all the (non-biased) statistics i've ever seen, DARE graduates do more drugs than their non-DARE-educated peers. is this a surprise to anyone? children are fed drug propoganda, and kids aren't stupid -- they know they're not getting the full story. so a good chunk of the kids become more interested in finding out what this whole "drug thing" is about and start experimenting.
as mentioned above in the "this is going to backfire" thread, this program will probably have the same outcome -- a good chunk of the kids will become curious about "hacking" and start finding out what it's all about on their own. this entire program is going to waste a whole lot of money, and just end up with even more script kiddies to plague the internet.
what needs to be taught is ethics. and sorry, but i don't trust the DOJ to teach their twisted form of ethics to my kids -- i'll do that myself, thanks.
sorry i'm a little bitter -- though i don't blame it, DARE still played a pretty big part in some of my friends getting addicted to Crystal Methamphetamine. now they don't listen to any scientific drug research because all DARE taught them was that all drug information is propoganda.
- j
--
"The only guys who might buy [the Apple iBook] are the kind who wear those ludicrous baggy pants with the built-in rope that's used for a belt."
- John C Dvorak - PC Magazine
I forget the precise history.. (Score:2)
"Should be what it always has been"? The original definition of the term was the one that you would find in the Jargon File. It is a rather ancient term (sorry, RMS, not to say that you or anyone else from "back then" are ancient ;). I really can't explain the correct usage of the term beyond that. However.. when computing became mildly less difficult to learn, a number of people who didn't have the intelligence or creativity of hackers to learn how to do anything /useful/ with a computer decided it might be a good idea to crack into other people's computers, ostensibly to "prove their worth". To compound this ethical violation, they referred to themselves as "hackers" (which began a long tradition carried on by crackers, warez d00dz, and script kiddies today to refer to themselves in a glorified manner they clearly do /not/ deserve). It shouldn't be too hard to see how this quickly escalated..
You're blatantly trolling and obviously /quite/ clueless. Hacker as "programming enthusiast" not "computer terrorist" is the /old school definition/. Just because Joe Public is a fscking idiot doesn't mean we are going to trash our entire culture. Grr.
Ok.. well.. (Score:2)
I would like to reassert my wish for filters that allow me to /not/ view comments from certain users. Like this "bright" individual here. Many people refer to themselves as hackers. The term is commonplace on Slashdot. Richard M. Stallman is a hacker. So is, well, everyone in the free software or open source movement that actually contributes decent code, I'd imagine.
I quote this sentence only to illustrate why ignorance and utter stupidity are self-perpetuating. This sentence doesn't make a lick of sense. Not exactly structurally sound. Obviously this person has a few self-esteem problems, as well. Oh, I mean.. what an intelligent message you have, there, sir.. We'll kindly relay that message to RMS, ESR, Linus Torvalds, and others. They really do suck. Real badly. What a bunch of posers. Grr.
To the hilt.. (Score:2)
Pardon my rather over-the-edge example, but you know, people who spread their own ignorance and stupidity around because they believe they're above the truth, or rather that they are the One Truth, and that everyone else should just shut the fuck up and believe whatever Joe Idiot believes even though he's an ignorant twit who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.. Hopefully you won't think what I'm about to say is my actual opinion. It isn't.
Yeah, I agree completely. I'm also not old enough to remember the Holocaust. It never really happened, anyway, because I didn't experience it. I'm sick of people bitching about the Jews. I say, fuck them. They need to get over it. Stupid idiots.
Ugh.. At any rate. Calling a "hacker" a "cracker", or vice versa, is about as intelligent as calling an "apple" and "orange", or vice versa. They are two completely different things. Hacker is the original fscking definition, and likely, no one gives a damn if you are fed up with the truth . If you want to live in a world of lies, fine. But keep them to yourself. Or go into politics. Your choice, really.
1984 (Score:2)
Error in your logic (BIG one) (Score:3)
However, if this is the case, then if I have a PC with Linux and Microsoft's OS install formats my disk, I can sue them and win because they destroyed my property. If I'm on Windows and I install Quicktime or MS Media Player, and it grabs control of all my image files, I can sue because it is disrupting my property in ways I didn't ask for or desire. In short, if cracking is a crime at all, then the computer industry are criminals, because so much of what they do invades your computer's 'space' and changes stuff around as if they owned it- sometimes causing data loss and other types of damage.
There's no way around this- even if the current situation isn't this clearcut, the trend toward smart updates and remote-disable copy protection completely goes into the same areas crackers go. In a situation where Microsoft wants to be able to block and withhold your computer use when _they_ think you've done something wrong, where is the difference? It obliterates the concept of computer data as property- and if computers are not property but a public resource you don't actually own, then there is no argument that crackers shouldn't be allowed to access them.
If computer data is property, then the computer industry is working very hard to make it effectively not be property anymore.
Isn't that the root of the problem?
Re:Hacking/Cracking semantics (Score:3)
Wrong kind of prevention (Score:3)
I have a possible solution, however. If these same kids had the opportunity to take computer science classes early on, they could find the challenge they needed in producing good software. Computer science education in high schools is terrible; it should be offered at multiple levels and even begun in middle school. With the infusion of technology into the workplace, schools would be able to justify the change as useful. Hopefully someone will catch on that this would be a good thing, though with the current status of education, who knows.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox [themes.org].
Prosperity due to *hackers*, not *crackers* (Score:3)
Yes, I realize crackers do advance the state of the art in security. But that is only one aspect of computers---albeit a critical one---and cracker's methods can and frequently are highly questionable, when other methods of achieving security are perhaps as effective or more so. This actually opens up an intereseting debate: which is actually better for security, open source methodology for peer review or crackers forcing corporations to take security seriously? Can crackers use their skills in better ways that are not destructive? This question of course refers to crackers that actually want to advance security, not the purely malicious idiots that are only interested in destruction. (Political crackers are another category altogether.)
Regardless, criticizing the DOJ's move as anti-hacking is extremely misguided. The DOJ's move is anti-*cracking*, not anti-hacking. Our current prosperity is indeed in large part due to a generation of kids hacking... but not cracking.
Actually, there is one more interesting point to consider. All of us Gen X geek kid types, at the time, how many of us were really cracking anyway? Personal computers weren't really networked; did viruses even exist? I was definitely a young hacker, but now that I think about it, could I have been a cracker even if I wanted to? Until being exposed to the Internet at MIT in 1987, I don't think I could have been, or even really known what that was.
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Political advertising paid for with taxes (Score:3)
All heat and no fire ... (Score:3)
{Put on flame-retardent overalls}
The concept was to install a number of "playpen" computers that kids could use to "break in". Similar in principle to providing rollerblade rinks to avoid them killing themselves on the roads. Would select a mix of OSs like Linux, FreeBSD, TrustedIRIX in order of increasing difficulty and tools for hunting down security holes and the philosophy of true hackerdom. The goal is to immerse them into the cultural landscape by providing reading material of role models and what traits the hacker community admired (talent, knowledge, modesty?) Then encourage kids to form groups/tribes to alternatively protect and to penetrate as far as possible undetected (home/away game) whilst the machines were still in a relatively controlled environment (ie in the community centre overlooked by someone responsible). That way they could learn skills (can we say forensic computing here!) and understand the role of a civil society at the same time (the only cyberlaws are what you can technologically enforce yourself!). Remember the only difference between a locksmith and a burgler is intent. By turning their energy into a competitive attitude towards computer mastery rather than notoriety, positive traits can in theory be reinforced.
{Flame suit off}
While the idea hasn't found any gung-ho mainstream champions to get it off the ground as yet, instead of whinging about the ineffectiveness of governments (which afterall is collectively suppose to represent your desires no matter how klutzy the implementation) perhaps
LL
Re:ethics (Score:3)
I, as a parent of school-age children want to retain the choice to do this myself, or send my kids to a church where the ethics and sense of right and wrong are close enought to my standards.
Oh, boy, more tax dollars for brainwashing.... (Score:3)
Not that any of the other government programs seem to be all that successful, but this is just another example of the feds overstepping their bounds. A few reasons (many of which have already been brought up):
There are more, but those are the only ones I can enumerate. I guess we can only hope that this program is as effective as DARE. At least in the town where I live, the DARE officer collects pot pipes and shows 'em off when he goes to school to discuss the evil of drugs. And he takes frequent breaks to go outside and smoke tobacco. Great example.
I think the good results of the DARE program are the bumper stickers:
So what's the slogan for the new program going to be? "BAAAHHHHHH...Microsoft good, shellcode bad"? "CARE...to leave the case on"? (CARE: Computer Abuse Resistance Education or Completely Absurd and Ridiculous anti-Education)
(The reason I bring up the DARE comparisons is the similarity in programs. Basically, it's just another form of brainwashing that we, the taxpayers, get to finance.)
Ok, now I'm really pissed.. (Score:3)
This could be low signal/noise.. I just woke up and am now in a rather unhappy mood thanks to this latest idiocy.. You've been warned. :)
Ok, how many of us actually know /children/ who qualify for the term hacker? Or even cracker? I think the grand majority of these would be termed "script kiddies". And if these idiots can't even figure out the correct terminology, it's really no wonder they're so defenseless. =P
Ok, so.. Not only do they have to impose their flawed definition of the term "hacker" upon the public at large, now they have to twist it in the mind of small children? Shouldn't there be some kind of law that prohibits the government from /lying/ to small children on a massive scale? Argh.. I can't even think properly on this.. It's too fscking stupid.. Grr.
I mean, there are already enough clueless idiots out in the world who, upon being asked for the definition of the word hacker, get it.. enh!! dead wrong! But now whenever a person who went through the educational system during a time when this brainwashing campaign was in effect is exposed to the term "hacker", they might denounce the "offender" who brought it up as some kind of "drug dealer", and refuse to listen to their "subversive" or (religious children may choose to insert any religious word that attaches a strong stigma to the "subversive" or "hell-bound" individual) explanation of what the word really means? Or something equally ludicrous? Talk about.. stupid..
Sorry, but if some random script kiddies can bust into your system, you probably /deserved/ it. Perhaps someone more competent should be hired to replace you if you work the government or a company and find yourself in this situation? =P
No, hacking is clever and /sexy/.. And everything about that paragraph would be funny if it wasn't so sad.. And so.. stupid..
Oh joy.. another way for MS and AOL to spread evil across the land..
The first sentence was just awful.. "The Justice Department wants to save children before they turn into hackers." Um.. sure. The world could always use a few less programmers that actually have a passion for what they're doing.. Or not. Oh wait, they already discourage the production of more good programmers in school.. By teaching them Pascal. Better than Basic, I suppose, but not by a whole lot. You know, until I learned about C, I always thought programming sucked. Whoever had the bright idea to teach Pascal in recent years instead of C in high school needs to.. Well, nevermind. Let's just say something not very pretty..
Prosperity due to crackers? (Score:4)
Crackers are certainly very interesting as they come in many shapes and sizes, but do they provide any real value to the computer industry?
When was the last time you were up at 3am working on some interesting problem and said "Man, I could really use a cracker about now"?
Now I realize that Keebler's would very much like you to believe that they rule the world by holding the reigns on the saltine monopoly.
But come on... let's get real here.
The real powers are Hostess and Coca-Cola. As long as they have hold of the distribution of Twinkies and Coke, they control the main source of energy behind the entire Internet revolution.
And I notice that the DOJ is doing nothing about this!!!!
Time to show my colors (Score:5)
Here's the scary part: in my daily work as a senior software engineer (oooh! a title, I get a title!) and all-around UNIX-monkey I use every scrap of knowledge that I gained back then. I *need* to know what kind of exploits people will look for in my software. I *need* to be able to put myself into the mind of the cracker. In previous jobs I've had to deal with active intrusions. No one else had a clue what to expect, and I had to spoon-feed them all.
I'm not saying that you should give every kid a "breaking in 101" class, but those who show the insight, skill and motivation to subvert security should be helped to find the "good path". Their skills should be respected. If you just turn a cold eye to them and tell them that what they are doing is evil, they will end up working against you. If you nurture their talent and push them to accept responsibility for their capabilities, they will be valuable members of the community.
As a closing thought, the most important lesson that I learned was when someone that I felt great respect for told me that he knew what I had been doing all along, and he didn't bother to stop me. But, when he took action was when I started telling others how to do it. I could have ended up writing exploit programs for script-kiddies, but that one conversation ended the possibility as firmly as a bullet. Say the right thing at the right time, and you can change someone's world.