Hacker Groups Mull Corporate Offers

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2612056,00.html

By Max Smetannikov, Inter@ctive Week
August 6, 2000 9:23 PM PT

The relationship between individual hackers and security experts used
to be simple: security companies hired a black hat, who became a white
hat. Now some companies are trying to purchase entire hacker
collectives.

The security firm @stake bought the London-based collective Cerberus
Information Security late last month for an undisclosed sum.

Investors have even expressed interest in the graybeard of all hacker
groups, Cult of the Dead Cow, proposing various business combinations,
including and initial public offering. The prospect troubles Deth
Veggie, minister of propaganda at the collective.

"I can't imagine CDC becoming a job," Veggie said. "If it stops being
fun, it will become a responsibility."

Watchers of the hacker scene believe buying up hacker brands could be
a smart move.

"I think this is somewhat of a trend, although I don't know how long
it will last because there is a limited number of groups that are
worth the money," said Elias Levy, chief technical officer at security
consultancy SecurityFocus.com. "By all means, it is easier to have an
arrangement where you could go and hire a group of people who are a
collective as a whole since you already have an idea how well they
work together and of their credentials."

Deth Veggie and his CDC colleague Count Zero can name at least five
other groups that they consider credible. They included pure
old-school hacker collectives like New Hack City, Root and Chaos
Computer Club (based in the Netherlands); hacker portals, like hacker
magazine and zine 2600; and the participants in nonprofit community
projects like textfiles.com, which seeks to collect all text files
created by the hacker community. Why would any security company be an
interested buyer? Some of the most prominent security firms, such as
Internet Security Systems, were started by hackers.

Still, many hackers share Veggie's skepticism about a future in the
corporate world.

"You lose a great deal when you go from being an artist to being a
paid professional," said Jim, a hacker from Berkeley, Calif.

Others have grabbed the paycheck. Last year, Boston-based @stake
acquired the well-known hacker collective L0pht Heavy Industries.

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