Warfare all over

[karl.schuttler at gmail.com (Karl Schuttler)]

And while by NO means am i suggesting we should in ANY way excuse
criminal behaviour, polarisation and an "us and them" atitude probably
doesn't always help. I'd like to see the idea prompted to the new
generation of would-be hackers that you don't have to pick a side, but
that you can make your own choices based on your own moral sense,
without having to pick between being evil or good and follow that camp
in all they do.

Chaotic Neutral?

2009/1/3 Matt Hillman <cybereagle at gmail.com>:
> Great comments everyone! I think Jack Daniels second point is my favourite
> so far:
>
> "On a more "tactical" level, those of us who work to defend are not allowed
> counterstrikes, much less preemptive attacks to secure ourselves."
>
> Now, to add my possibly controversial opinion...
>
> The whole warfare analogy never quite sat with me. I never felt like I was
> in a war with this whole thing. It implies that there are sides, with
> goodies and baddies, and I have to be honest I just don't feel that way.
>
> Now admitedly, I don't work in defensive security. I'm a pentester and
> researcher, and maybe that shifts the "feel" I get, because the black and
> white, us and them thing never quite did it for me. After all, I'm doing a
> lot of what "they" are doing, its not *that* different.
>
> Or maybe its because I came from, and still very much identify as a hacker
> before anything else. Hackers are hackers, some of us just have different
> goals in mind. I have my personal ethics, other people have theirs. I think
> criminal activity isn't acceptable, so I don't use my skills to do it.
>
> All of this said, in more recent years, things have polarised more. Now here
> is where it gets interesting: is this because there was a rise in purely
> criminal hackers with no motivation beyond criminal gain, or, is this partly
> because of the black and white analogies that started to be uses, like the
> whole warfare idea?
>
> Perhaps its a cobination of these, with the added fact that as the media
> began to noice and come down hard on hackers, many felt the need to
> drastically distance themselves from the more criminal elements.
>
> And while by NO means am i suggesting we should in ANY way excuse criminal
> behaviour, polarisation and an "us and them" atitude probably doesn't always
> help. I'd like to see the idea prompted to the new generation of would-be
> hackers that you don't have to pick a side, but that you can make your own
> choices based on your own moral sense, without having to pick between being
> evil or good and follow that camp in all they do.
>
> And, to look at it a diferent way again, even aknowledging the growing
> purely gain based criminal element, I'm still not sure that makes it a war.
> I don't lock my door as part of my pesonal "war on robbery", I just do it
> because its a good idea.
>
> Maybe its purpose is in fact to convince managers that security is a big
> deal. It is a big deal. But I never liked hype or scare mongering, its
> counter productive. I think there can be better, less sweeping mataphors.
> Salesmen for example always seem to talk in terms of sports cars :P
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Mike Patterson <mike.patterson at unb.ca>
> wrote:
> > Arch Angel wrote on 1/2/09 10:18 AM:
> > > of ideas and comments.  Even I have pondered why on Earth people are
> > > taking
> > > terms and actions from one context and placing them in others
> >
> > The answer to that one is easy: analogous thinking is among the more
> > powerful tools humans have at their disposal.  (Why yes, I am a
> > phil/psych undergrad, why do you ask? :) )
> >
> > My primary issue isn't with the fact that IT Sec Pros use military
> > analogies; it's that we do it in a shallow fashion, and don't seem
> > interested in trying to find other, potentially more powerful ones.
> >
> > As far as capturing some of the conversation and thoughts, I've been
> > podering a blawg post, since I'm Hip And With It, but things have been
> > pretty busy for me.  Not a lot more public than mailing list archives,
> > but it's something.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > --
> > > NT is a one-legged cow, but even a one legged cow is fast when
> > > it's got 160+ rockets strapped to it.
> > But that's not that impressive if all you can make it do is go
> > around in circles. - Nick Manka and Darrell Fuhriman, monks
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