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Hackers and Virtual Perps: Beware of the ICSA.net Sleuths
From: mea culpa <jericho () DIMENSIONAL COM>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 16:08:11 -0600
[Moderator: If any of this guy's employees end up in jail, they belong there. The implications that 2600 meetings involve illegal activity is a joke. Even if they did, his team should not participate in it no matter what the cost. They can fit in without it. And if all it took was a letter from some guy with the word "security" in his title to get someone out of jail, our prison system would be quite empty.] From: "Noonan, Michael D" <michael.d.noonan () intel com> http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB938637421701976364.djm Hackers and Virtual Perps: Beware of ICSA.net Sleuths By DEAN TAKAHASHI Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL CARLISLE, Pa. -- David Kennedy carries a special pager just in case any of his employees winds up in jail. It's a distinct possibility: Mr. Kennedy runs a posse of computer-security specialists who use some aggressive gumshoe tactics to track malicious hackers and virus writers. Mr. Kennedy has his pager because he sends his undercover employees to hacker meetings such as the infamous 2600 hacker gathering in New York. His agents fit in with the crowds, which are awash in jeans, ponytails and cherubic faces. "If they get picked up," Mr. Kennedy says, "I have their 'get out of jail free' card." His team is part of ICSA.net Inc. (www.icsa.net <http://www.icsa.net/>1), a closely held company that assesses security threats and evaluates antivirus software for large corporations. One of the company's charters is to keep its ear to the computer underground, even to the point of infiltrating it, explains Peter Tippett, the company's chief technology officer. "You have to straddle both worlds," he says, "with one foot above ground and one underground if you want to know what's really going on." [snip..] ISN is sponsored by Security-Focus.COM
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