RE: Will the real hacker please stand up and raise their hand

From: Mark Teicher (mht3@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Jul 13 2006 - 16:36:04 EDT


But why one doubt a Ph.D. (CISSP, IAM, CCNP, CCDA, CCNA, ACE, CCSA, CCSE, and MCSE) who gained access to a database at Roswell in the early 90's Almost like a person who spent over 10 years with the Federal Government perfecting the skills which enable him to be called "one of the first CYBERSPACE private investigators".

Makes you want to attend BlackHat and actually meet and greet a real bonafide grey/black hat hacker. :)

-----Original Message-----
>From: Terry <tvernon24@comcast.net>
>Sent: Jul 13, 2006 3:56 PM
>To: 'Mark Teicher' <mht3@earthlink.net>, pen-test@securityfocus.com
>Subject: RE: Will the real hacker please stand up and raise their hand
>
>
>Just recently, I worked at a company whose main client was the DoD. When I
>was being scouted I heard many promises and things that peaked the interest
>of an ex-mischief maker. When I got the job I soon realized that the man
>running the show was a huge fraud who claimed many accolades above my own.
>Everything he said about his technical past was a lie and to make things
>worse, whenever he talked about me openly he hyped me up to be something I'm
>not from my past reputation. In the end he stopped pretending to be my ally
>and I got railroaded but it didn't come without a price to them. When I
>think about the whole mess now all I see is how shameless self promotion and
>lies can get you anywhere, even a contract with the upper rungs of our
>government. Today I surely think the agents in which were involved have
>smartened up to this pretend company.
>
>My example here is I've made myself a bad name being your typical black hat.
>When I turn it all around into a useful thing for society nobody wants to
>hire me except liars and frauds. The things many of us on this list know can
>save a company millions, the sad part is we get picked up by bullshit
>artists that cheapen the art in which we're skilled. I am saddened when I
>think about all the huge liars and morons that put "Network Security
>Engineer" on their business card. Most people who look at my resume aren't
>qualified enough to read it, so I get overlooked because of their ignorance
>in my field and they pick based on who went to the best school. I'm probably
>not alone in this plight.
>
>/end rant
>/dance
>
>-Terry
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Teicher [mailto:mht3@earthlink.net]
>Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 7:23 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
>
>
>_________________________________
>Attend the Black Hat Briefings and
>Training, Las Vegas July 29 - August 3
>2,500+ international security experts from 40 nations,
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>www.blackhat.com
>
>
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