Re: Simple Nomad's DefCon 11 Rant

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Mark Bernard <mbernard () nbnet nb ca>

Dear Associates,

Hacking is just like anything else once its been going on for a while
its finally reached its apex and started to get a little stagnate.
Just ask yourself who has really stood out of the crowd lately?

After all the world hasn't simply stood still while a bunch of pimple
face teenagers learned how to write a script. Most of these folks
don't even truly understand what hacking is really about. Instead they
have become a bunch of QA testers, wow!

Yes Hacking has finally been Americanized and looks like a huge
commercialized Disneyland. It is now going down the back side of the
apex and we are only seeing variations of already known attacks
nothing new.

The good guys have caught up in both skill and capabilities. Sure
every once in a while some hacker will come along with a brilliant
idea, but those guys are far a few between. Anyone can create a DoD
that's amateurish. How many of these guys/gals could actually
penetrate a system or even get a sniff! Wake up guys!!


Regards,
Mark.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "InfoSec News" <isn () c4i org>
To: <isn () attrition org>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 3:00 AM
Subject: [ISN] Simple Nomad's DefCon 11 Rant


> http://www.nmrc.org/pub/report/sn-dc-2003.html
>
> Have you noticed the change? Do you remember where you were when you
> first felt the change? I am talking about the change in the security
> community, especially the underground community. Less trust. More
> control. Less truth. I'm not talking about society since 9-11,
> although most certainly looking at things like USA Patriot and DSEA
> one can certainly see less trust, more control, and less truth. I'm
> talking about the underground closing ranks. The emergence of
> Richard Thieme's third generation hackers.
>
> The holy trinity of hackers -- trust, control, and truth.
>
> Typically the purest form of knowledge -- the facts -- are what
> hackers refer to as truth. A wisp of falsehood or lie will cause a
> hacker to bristle. With the nature of hacking being to learn the
> true nature of something, the truth is an important commodity.
>
> Trusting a truth. An important item on the hacker checklist. Can a
> "truth" be trusted as really being true? Crawling through the ether,
> keeping enemies as friends, encountering the unknown, a hacker needs
> to know not only who to trust but what. And it is never a glass that
> is half empty or half full, it is a swirling and ever-changing
> fishbowl filled with truths and lies, all swimming together and
> influencing each other. Finding the truth needle in a haystack of
> disinformation -- the marching orders of the new millenium hacker.
>
> Hackers need to be able to not only understand the control
> mechanisms that surround a truth, and the nature of those controls,
> but to understand the responsibility that comes with exercising
> control over a truth. Also, knowing when and how you are being
> controlled and manipulated, be it by pervasive means or just the
> fact that you are aware your actions are being monitored. Having
> your actions monitored can influence your behavior substantially.
> Between TLA-driven Carnivore-styled systems to enemy hackers with
> dsniff to nosy ISP admins, the tilting game board has not just
> shifted the controls, but the mere threat of controls have changed
> hacker methods drastically and permanently.
>
> There are hackers -- white hat types -- that have removed code from
> their web pages simply because of the threats posed by such things
> as DMCA. Talk about Sun Tzu tactics -- many coders removed their
> work from the net without any laws being used against them. That's a
> serious control mechanism right there.
>
> The new millenium hacker has seen this landscape of unknown enemies
> in unknown numbers, circled the wagons, and lives a multi-layered
> life behind layered walls of security, disinformation, and distrust.
>
> Two years ago I gave a talk at DefCon 9 that was in my opinion the
> highpoint for Simple Nomad 1.0. I received a lot of positive
> feedback from this talk, mainly along the lines of agreement that
> society is heading for a suppressive human rights hell in a
> handbasket cleverly disguised with a transnational conglomerate
> cloaking device. It was a call to arms that things were going from
> bad to worse. After DefCon 9, September 11 happened, and all of my
> exaggerated claims -- as well as the claims of many others -- began
> to happen. Claims of the coming neo-Hooverism began to usher forth
> starting with the passage of USA Patriot and followed by a series of
> Presidential directives and legislation currently in various stages
> -- some passed into law, some pending before a willing congress --
> that seriously attacks the hacker and hacker culture.

[...]



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