hackers ?

[Metgod]

Surprise surprise! more commentary from the bored out of his skull metgod! This article really disgusts me in some ways.. and I feel I want to comment on it..

but to make the record straight.. I was a bit annoyed with something when writing this so I might seem a bit, uh, aggressive on it... I actually think some things are good they are doing but I think the way they explain how elite speak is expected and so on is just stupid..

Met.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3246375.stm

By Jo Twist
BBC News Online technology reporter
14 November, 2003

A simple search reveals a plethora of resources, tools, and personal
homepages, most claiming to "hack" for legitimate reasons, within the
law.

[ If the word is not 'hack', then I'd sure as hell like to know what it is! Please don't say IT manager or something equally stupid.. ]


But there is also an entire underground network of hackers honing
their tools and skills with malicious damage in mind.

[ wait a minute.. how can the word 'hacker' have two *DIFFERENT* and *OPPOSITE* definitions ? a five year old could know that doesn't make sense..  ]


"Ten years ago, 'hackers' used to mean people who tinker with
computers.

[ oh ? Maybe I'm wrong but I really don't think so.. maybe by some people, but a lot of them were considered CRIMINALS and were prosecuted for their break ins or wars...  and see above.. ]

"Nowadays hacking means malicious hacking. The definition has changed,
so get over it," Peter Tippett, founder and chief technical officer at
TruSecure told BBC News Online.

[ That depends on who you ask, Mr Tippett. And that 'get over it' .. I think you should get over your haughty attitude.. ]

Being 'k3wl'

The underground network is vast, with thousands of individuals and
groups, ranging from lurkers who are intrigued by hacker chat to
"script kiddies" who try out hacker tools for a laugh.

[ more confusion here.. good idea.. confuse the reader so they'll believe anything you say! perfect idea for the media!

Please.. stop it.. you say script kiddies and then hacker tools in the same sentence.. that's just wrong. Script kiddies don't use hacker tools.. they use script kiddy tools!

While I don't have the perfect definiton of hacker, and although it has probably changed for me over time.. at least it doesn't mix the script kids in it... they are different, you know.. or maybe you don't know.. in which case you shouldnt' be writing about this..]



Newsgroups, internet relay chat and increasingly, peer-to-peer chat
and instant messaging, are buzzing with constant hacker chatter.

[ right.. this has been going on for years and you make it sound as if it's something new ... hell, i remember that back in 1998 is when the Internet users started getting more pathetic.. more junk started occuring on the internet.. began to get even more difficult to find documents.. and yes, the instant messaging type software got much more popular... which I think was the point here...  ]


Net security companies like TruSecure in the US, have the job of
keeping an eye on these groups to work out which weak net spot they
are planning to attack next.

[ read: spying, manipulating, other unethical behaviour and and prosecuting people for stupid things.. I really doubt they only prosecute those who have attacked and caused major damage. You know what's sad is that, in the FBI, it used to be that you had to cause I think 10 thousand or so in money to be prosecuted.. now that limit doesn't exist AFAIK and on top of that.. damages are extremely over exaggerrated... and anything can be 'damage' these days.. ]


It currently tracks more than 11,000 individuals in about 900
different hacking groups and gangs.

[ hacking gang.. sounds like something CPM  (Caroyln P. Meinel for those who don't know) would say.. god I hate that woman.. LIBEL, SLANDER, CAUSING DAMAGES, LYING, MANIPULATING, and PREYING ON THE KIDS AND STUPID.. and then claims she's doing everything to keep computer crime at it's low...  and over 11,000 and 900 different groups.. scary.. but somehow I doubt they're hackers.. unless you count mindless, stupid kids who haven't a clue about ethics or anything else... and just has anger problems.. or conduct problems... ]

[Metgod]

continuing..

"There are 5,500 net vulnerabilities that could be used theoretically
to launch an attack, but only 80 or 90 are being used," says Mr
Tippett.

[ How do you know this is the number, Mr. Tippett ? hell, that number is constantly changing and you're saying it as if it is exact.. or so it seems.. and I really doubt there is that few vulns.. look up the word 'approximate' at least...]


"Only 16 of 4,200 of vulnerabilities actually turned into attacks last
year."

[ Uhm.. and above it was higher number.. good flow of the article! and really.. does it matter about the number of attacks ? who cares.. the point is there are many flaws in the TCP/IP stack that can't be fixed easily (oh and can't forget hardware too) AND there are many admins that don't lock down their systems.. that's the bottom line.. ]

A team of human and computer bots - artificial intelligence programs -
count the vulnerabilities that pop up all over the web daily and
measure the risk of security attacks for TruSecure's 700 or so
customers.

[ right.. well, I sure hope that these programs count the past because some still exist in some old systems.. some systems still have not locked down basic things like the old cgi vulns that allowed one to look at an UNSHADOWED passwd file.. ]


But that is not enough for 21st century net security, says Mr Tippett.

[ so resort to unethical things.. there you go! ]

A separate team at TruSecure has a more mysterious job. It is the
elite group of hacker infiltrators, codename IS/Recon (Information
Security Reconnaissance).

[ *mails this article to all script kiddies*! ok, maybe not.. ]

Their daily job is to "see what the bad guys say to each other and
what they claim to have done" by gaining respect and building online
relationships with groups with names like Hackweiser and G-force
Pakistan, Mr Tippett explains.

[ HAHA.. g-force.. as if that's some special group of really good hackers... I'm fine with jailing stupid kids.. in fact sometimes they aer treated too lightly.. but I still think unethical methods isn't always the best thing.. ]


"These are the groups of people who attack websites, write viruses,
attack code, steal credit cards, and generally do nasty things," he
says.

[ hey, at least you didn't mention hackers in this sentence. :) ]

IS/Recon is like the net's A-Team, with the only difference being the
team members are not renegades gone good.

"We refuse to hire hackers, that would be crazy," says Mr Tippett. "We
don't do anything illegal, but we impersonate hackers."

[ you might find at times that hiring hackers is a good thing. granted a lot of times it's not but it can be good and it depends on the individual background and experience.. ]


They are all good with technology, according to Mr Tippett, but some
of them have a valuable background in psychology.

[ cool! so do I.. I have a background.. from experience! may I have a job !? I swear I'm not a lunatic... ]


This helps in understanding group behaviour and how minds work, as
well as helping them to act like hackers.

[ and anyone could do this without that background. if you just study a group or a person for a while you can understand how they think and how others alike them think... ]


"The team has an average of five or six people on them, each with 20
to 30 personalities," explains Mr Tippett.

[ wow.. even though it's not officially called Multiple Personality Disorder, really called Dissociative Identity Disorder.. that's a hell of a case of MPD! ]


"They usually stay on the team for a year or two then move on to
something else."

[ I can only imagine.. that's a good thing ]

In that time, they use their net personae to get to know the hackers
so they can build up detailed profiles of them.

[ ethics.. ethics.. ethics.. where did they disappear to ? ]



"They spend a year listening and watching - lurking - before they ever
say a word in the group."

[ for folks with a background in psychology.. that's quite a bit of time to figure them out... kind of scary actually, that it would take that long... ]

Which, says Mr Tippett, gives IS/Recon the time to develop different
hacker personae around the lingo, rituals and behaviour that is
expected in the underground.

Using "k3wl" instead of "cool" and making sure the "a" is always
replaced by "4" may seem insignificant habits any teenager living in
an SMS world might do.

[ this is actually shunned by many in the underground.. because it shows that the person can't write correctly.. or that they can't think for themselves.. or they are kids who really have nothing else to do... or many other possibilities.. such as lack of experience and intelligence or creativity.. ok, ok.. I used some of it in my earlier days but I wasn't really serious and thought it was cool... it was amusing.. but expected in the underground ? maybe the script kiddy part... ]


But by talking the talk and virtually walking the walk, IS/Recon has
gained the trust of nearly 100 different groups.

The trick is to gain enough trust to get certain individuals in the
groups to "blab" and answer questions about who is who and what they
are doing.

[ which only stupid criminals would do ... ]

"They tell us a lot about what's going on and what that person is
about in order to demonstrate how cool they are to us."

[ more like lame.. ]

The holy grail for the team is to get hold of a copy of a tool a
hacker is developing. Once tested and taken apart in the lab,
preventative measures can be put in place before it is used.

[ good.. something good here... finally! ]

Jigsaw puzzle

The hours spent gathering 200 gigabytes of information a day, are
invaluable in helping to catch the small proportion of hackers who do
the net severe damage.

[ even I wouldn't go through that much data and I used to read log files for the longest time... ugh, I can't even imagine waving through 200GBs of info/data.... ]



Pieces of information about groups and individuals are put together
like a giant jigsaw in TruSecure's mammoth database, nicknamed the
"brain".

It graphically shows the big players, where they live, who they know,
who they hate, what tools they have developed, and even whether they
have a cat.

[ a cat.. right.. what a waste of time and resources.. who cares if a criminal has a cat or not unless they are mistreating it ? kind of bloated.. and kind of scary that there are programs designed to profile people.. ]

This has enabled the team to help out with 54 investigations by law
enforcement agencies.

IS/Recon gave the FBI over 200 documents about the Melissa virus
author after they were asked to get closer to suspects.

[ I talked to the author before his stupid mistake.. I have a small past in the virus scene.. I wasn't really respected for virus coding skills.. didn't really care about writing viruses except the one which was a learning project of how boot sectors work.. how os's boot, etc. but I hate viruses... ]

Although they did not know his real name, they knew his three aliases
and had built a detailed profile of the author.

[ impressive.. I wonder now if they were following just the Code Breakers (the virus group he belonged to) or if others in the virus scene.. was always told the FBI monitors some channels on IRC but I don't know if I believed it. now I'm sure they would try.. ]


The team's work also helped identify the author of the high-profile
LoveSan virus.

[ good! hopefully the author was imprisoned ... ]

"We could say what dorm and what floor the author of the LoveSan virus
was on," Mr Tippett says.

"Unfortunately, there are very few countries that have laws good
enough to follow through if someone turns out to be coming from
there."

[ it actually is unfortunate but I think that some laws are absurd.. ]

[Zerored]

Good article metty....and im not dead..im alive!!!

[Metgod]

Nice to hear from you Zero! :)

Hope you can be on more often again.. miss your posts.. and everyone elses...


cheers :)
metty

[DHD]

Hehe, well, i'm new here, so hello..

Fine article.

/DHD

[Metgod]

Welcome to the board DHD! Glad you liked the article.. means I didn't post it for no reason! :)

Hope to hear more comments from you..

Cheers,
Metty

[DHD]

Thanks Metgod, i'll think there'll be plenty of comments from my side

And a Thanks to Uneek for sending me here

/DHD

[Metgod]

Great.. It'll be nice to correspond with you. :)


oh.. and Neek.. thanks for bringing him here!

Cheers,
Metty

[Uneek]

Heh... damn! See what happens when I don't log in for a month? They let anyone into these boards!!! j/k Glad you joined DHD... I've refered so many people to this board I sometimes have to strain my pea-brain and remember who's who, but now I remember DHD I think... IRC referral from #hackphreak right? Welcome man! Enjoy the board!

[DHD]

Yeah, that's right uneek.. well it'll be a short post, have to go to school..

See ya
DHD

[syklops]

first post, and I know its to an old thread but you may find this interesting.

the bbc news website where the IS guy said long ago hackers were people who built and tinkered, but now they are just malicious evil-geniuses, has produced an article concerning windows on a Mac. And they entitled it " Hackers get Mac running Windows". Are we back to being builders and fixers, or was this just to grab peoples attentions?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4816520.stm

[benthehutt]

I think the worst part of the article is the last part:

"One of the many reasons that Apple machines have not proved more popular is because of the relatively small number of programs, in particular games, created for them. With work, many of the hugely popular programs for Windows may be able to run on Apple machines too."

I guess they don't understand that Apple is not about the hardware--they're about the complete system.  This article only means that windows software can run on windows--who cares?  Apple has nothing now that they've lost the powerpc architecture.  Whose brilliant idea was it for them to go to Intel?  64 bit OSX had to be downgraded--poor little guy...

[syklops]

64 bit OSX had to DOWNgraded? Thats the funniest thing I have heard all day. Did no-one at any point sit back and go"Maybe this isnt such a good idea?"

[benthehutt]

I have no idea what they were thinking...I mean, it was really the first true 64 bit OS for the common user (at least, on the G5), then they went back to 32 bit Intel crap!  The caches on the processor die were also cut--the G5's had beefy caches and now they've gotta go back to what, 2 meg L1 caches?  Well, technically speaking they're not completely comparible...but it's still a backstep.  Then they had to split off the BIOS--with powerpc it was kinda integrated into the OS and the board--now it has lost some functionality.

Oh well, they should get cheaper at least.  I do have a theory though, I think macs are gonna get less stable.  A big problem Apple has never faced is writing drivers for thousands of different plug and play hardware--but I suppose they'll be forced to.  Generic hardware will eventually find it's way into Apple's systems now that they're intel.  Then again, maybe these are just the thoughts of a madman...

[Metgod]

Actually saw that article the other day as well. I had totally forgotten about this stupid post though.

Goes to show how bored I can get.

I've seen other interesting articles on BBC that contradict the article I posted as well. But that can happen in other areas besides the media I suppose (I've probably done it myself ...).

As for 64 bit versus 32 bit:

I find that while developing programs, 64 bit is problematic (since some things change, eg. data type sizes). Plus drivers and other programs can be very broken. Yes you can use emulation, but that's annoying (or to me it is). I tend to stay 32 bit until 64 bit is more supported (although I'm looking forward to that).

Still though, 64 bit definitely has it's uses... and it'll be awesome once it's really more used. (Was just talking to someone else about this yesterday actually)...