From: Williamson, Clyde (CWilliamson@Limitedbrands.com)
Date: Thu Jul 13 2006 - 13:07:59 EDT
I think perhaps fantasy characters, heroes and protagonists often embody,
not a reality, but an ideal. John Wayne's characters, in most movies acted
like heroes from other mythologies. People in the Middle Ages didn't act
like the Knights of The Round Table. The ideals of Chivalry came from poets,
not real life. I am not at all sure that there was ever a time when most
Americans acted like a character out of a John Wayne movie. Instead, I think
that it was entertainment because it was a wonderful story, not a real life
documentary. If I recall correctly, Mr. Abagnale served time for his
criminal actions. I believe that in France he nearly died in prison and he
was sentenced to another 12 years in the states. His employment for the
government was part of a release program (IIRC) and he was not paid for his
work. After serving his time, he was released and offered his expertise to
banks, which they took him up on. Instead of glorifying a criminal, the
banks were making use of a reformed fraudster.
As for his friends... if they were unable to succ3essfully hack in their
younger years, and can't seem to find a decent job in the computer world
now, I might question their skills, rather than some loss of ethics by
business owners.
It seems to me that, perhaps, he has confused reality and fantasy. That can
be a hard come down for anyone.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Teicher [mailto:mht3@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:23 AM
To: pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: Will the real hacker please stand up and raise their hand
Every once in a while, I read a story on the Internet, that just doesn't add
up, as listed below, it appears most organization, enterprise type companies
have policies preventing the hiring of known or identified computer security
type people, other companies hire them openly or make up some impressive
press statements stating they have hired one with rootfu or some sort of
skillz, whatever they might be..
You be the judge after the reading the attached article..
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [ISN] Hackers and Employment
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:15:11 -0500 (CDT)
From: InfoSec News <alerts@infosecnews.org>
Organization: InfoSec News - http://www.infosecnews.org/
To: isn@infosecnews.org
http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=7766
By Demir Barlas
Line56
July 12, 2006
The reason many of us who grew up outside America found this country
charming and worthy of emulation was its principles, at least as projected
on the movie screen. You can argue about their politics, but the characters
portrayed by John Wayne, for instance, operated according to a fixed code of
ethics. They stood for what they considered right; they never cheapened or
sold themselves; and they lived (and died) with integrity.
I encountered this America before I actually came here.
Perhaps this is why it is so easy for me to see what native-born Americans
cannot understand about that their own country: that it is rapidly falling
into decadence. When I say this, I'm not referring to some declining
standard of collective religious morality, but rather to personal morality.
All too many Americans stand ready to pimp themselves, and the system is now
designed to reward rather than discourage them. This is an arrangement that
the rest of the world rightly considers hypocritical and, despite all talk
of globalism, will never emulate.
Let me give an example. I recently got an e-mail from Avaya, one of whose
employees, Tom Porter, was leading a security team at the World Cup. The
e-mail proudly advertises Porter as a "a former hacker [who] got into the
U.S. government database on Roswell in the early 90s." Now he has been able
to have a highly visible and well-paying job as chief of Internet security
for FIFA and Avaya.
As soon as I got this e-mail, I recalled the case of Frank Abagnale, Jr.,
the fraudster whose life was made into the movie Catch Me If You Can.
And, I admit, I got angry. I want to tell you why.
Some of my friends in the ninth grade were aspiring computer hackers. I
suppose it was a natural impulse for a bunch of intelligent boys cooped up
in an otherwise boring programming class. We tried a few exploits but, in
the end, got caught. We were never that good in the first place, not because
we lacked intelligence but because, I am convinced, of the ethos that had
survived into Denver even into the 1980s. The ethos told us that hacking was
bad. We couldn't shrug this off our conscience, and so conducted our
exploits rather half-heartedly.
I've kept up with many of my classmates over the years. There is, in the
group with which I am familiar, no one who has committed a felony, gone to
jail, or refused to pay taxes. Everyone has walked the line. And our reward?
Most of us struggle along at meaningless occupations, trying to make ends
meet -- punished, I maintain, by our consciences.
For America no longer rewards conscience. If you kill someone, you will be
offered a book deal. If you impersonate a doctor and nearly cause the death
of a baby [like Abagnale], someone will make a comedic movie about you. If
you become a hacker and endanger our government, you will become a
consultant. If you sink a company, you will find a high position in that
very government. Only competence at criminality and self-promotion are
rewarded. The more vicious, heartless, and inept you are, the further you'll
go.
If you want to talk about anti-Americanism, you can't find a better example.
The culture of merit, sincerity, and principle that once animated this
country is gone, and that impacts everyone from left to right.
Have you seen The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? John Wayne's character
refuses to take the credit for an act that would, in that day and age, have
made him famous. His principles dictate that he cannot engage in
self-promotion, which he leaves to Jimmy Stewart's character. Stewart
becomes a senator and marries a woman with whom Wayne was in love; Wayne
retires from public life and dies alone.
Oh, but today! After shooting Valance, Wayne would have gotten a publicity
agent, launched a blog, and gone on talk shows. He would have done the
lecture circuit, opened a consultancy on how to shoot outlaws, and sold his
"life rights" to a Hollywood studio.
I'm sorry to say it, but I hate what you might call the post-Wayne America
(and I say this despite having radically different politics from Wayne
himself). It's an upside-down country in which criminals become celebrities
while good, hard-working people struggle along on dollars a day. There is no
longer any act divorced from its promotion. The only principle is to gather
as much money and fame as possible, prostituting yourself all the way, until
you die.
I do not feel that a country can long endure such principles or such acts of
decadence. They constitute a kind of rot that will, some day, turn America
into the equivalent of the moribund, cynical countries of Western Europe.
Moreover, they are a gleeful betrayal of every principle on which this
country stood for the first two centuries of its existence.
I suppose this article will be met by incomprehension from people who have
absorbed their values from the post-Wayne moment in American history. As a
historian, I am a professional pessimist, but I can't help but feel that
these very people are only the tip of the iceberg; that, as in the movie
15 Minutes (or, more apocalyptically, Death Race 2000), crime will pay even
more than it does today.
It is worth concluding with a passage from Henry Miller's The
Air-Conditioned Nightmare, which captures the spirit of the changed America
to which I allude:
As to whether I have been deceived, disillusioned...The answer is yes, I
suppose. I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of
great Americans. Some other breed of man has won out. The world which is in
the making fills me with dread....It is a world cluttered with useless
objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are
taught to regard as useful....Whatever does not lend itself to being bought
and sold...is debarred. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a
fool, and the man of vision a criminal.
Copyright 2000-2006 Line56.com
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