Posted
29 January 2003 @ 7 AM

Tagged
security

3 Comments

Mr Mitnick and news

The last few weeks have seen the most absurd publicity for a cracker, Kevin Mitnick who went online for the first time in ten years after his jail term. Although the FBI went too far to call him a computer terrorist, he was indeed a criminal. I may have become biased by reading his girlfriend’s blog earlier. He was more of a social engineering cracker than a true hacker. On the other hand, I do agree that he was given unfair trial. But I got pissed off when Darci, his girlfriend says this on her blog

Our thirst for knowledge and child-like curiosities, drive us to sometimes teeter on the boundaries, set by those who do not share this passion for technology. Most of us, lean back and waver back towards our side of the line without ever going over, but some of us need to cross it to quench that thirst. When the government couldn’t understand a hacker that hacked just for the sake of knowledge and not for personal gain—we all could.

Does that justify crime? On other front, while reviewing the book The Art of Deception that Kevin has written, Robert Slade says,

…this is a book about how to fool people…

But Don Norman explains why you should read this book not for the break-in techniques, but for the social engineering attacks that are possible. This is important, I feel, from a security professional’s perspective.

3 Comments (closed)

Posted by
Shamit

30 January 2003 @ 9 PM

Great commentry and an equally cool set of links . . . Its true that as your prowess goes up such tendencies to misuse may creep in - this urge should be controlled; but hacking to point vulnerabilities has its own circle of reason and may be justified isnt it !

Posted by
Flypig

30 January 2003 @ 12 AM

Or you get a really good dictionary like I had, dumped from a large shareholder database ;-)

Posted by
codey

30 January 2003 @ 4 AM

yup... you definitely got a point there.. when you break into something, it is illegal.. period.. whatever the intent might be.. the only issue is when people do not make that clear.. like a lad who wrote a book on 'ethical hacking'. there is nothing ethical about hacking.. if you are that intent on breaking in.. set up your own box at your home and do whatever you want with it... giving it a noble gloss on top is what leads to so many kids on cable connections running amok with their ethereals and nmaps..