When the "experts" are misinformed...

The week before last I attended a Security+ boot camp training course with Learning Tree International. My company had a few extra thousand dollars lying around and so I opted to get set up to take the Security+ certification. I had attended courses with Learning Tree before and thought they were worth the money but I am not so sure anymore...

The instructor was a very intelligent and educated older man. However, as the course progressed I noted that the instructor, on several occasions, alluded to the motives of modern day hackers. In his mind true hackers do what they do for the thrill of the hack and the recognition the act provided. This may have been true several years ago but I believe that times have changed. Hackers today, or at least the majority of them, do what they do for financial gain.

I tried to have a discussion with the instructor on this subject and he refused to see my point of view. In particular I tried to explain how hackers that go to conventions to reveal their work do so not for the accolades but for the potential job opportunities. While the hackers that choose to keep their craft to themselves tend to either sell their work to others or use it themselves in an effort to secure funds through some illegal venture. To my dismay I was unable to convince him of this and I honesly have no idea why...

Money is the root of all evil, as the saying goes, and hackers today are motivated by greed just as much as any of us. Neither here nor there I suppose but it does give the rest of us an idea of what kind of data hackers are after...

When Cheesy movies come to life...

A few years ago Scott Backula of Quantum Leap fame starred in a movie called NetForce (1999). The movie was aweful by my standards but I thought since it was based off of a Tom Clancy novel that it couldn't be that bad. Boy was I wrong!

The storyline essentially had a Bill Gates type character that was hell bent on controlling the Internet. As the plot developed the last line of defense was a special code that once released would shut down the Internet permanently. Even then I thought: "wow, what a load of BS!" The idea that anyone could "shut down" the Internet seemed insane. I truly thought to myself there was no way anyone could take out the Internet in one fell swoop.

That was then and this is now. I found an article on the popular science website that detailed how not only is there an Internet kill switch but there are also "keys to the Internet" to be used in the event of a massive cyber attack.

Needless to say after absorbing this information I feel a bit ashamed of all the NetForce bashing I did near the turn of the century. Who would have thought that cheesy made for TV movies could be so prophetic?

First Post!

Ok, yeah... Had to do it!