Reply From: The Dodger <dodgerat_private> >Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05at_private> > >[All in all not a bad article at all. The reporter shows he's researched > the subject relatively well, and has some clue about what he's talking > about. We need more articles like this! :) - Nicholas] McCormack probably knows more about the UK hacking scene than any other mainstream journalist, but it says a lot that last Saturday, just days after this article was published, something like 50 or 60 people attended Conspiracy (a hacker party-type event) in Manchester. He may be the best, but he's still not all _that_ good. On the other hand, a great deal of what Mike writes is pretty close to the truth - a lot of the hackers who were around four or five years ago (before hacking become "cool") are now working in the IT industry and earning good money. There are still plenty of hackers breaking into machines, but for the majority of these, their sole aim seems to be making it into the newspapers. As for the script-kiddies - well, they're just vanity-hacker/code-warez-trader hybrids. However, there is still (and always has been) a hard core of real hackers here in the UK, for whom hacking is it's own reward. They were there before hacking became the hip new way to be cool and they'll be there long after all the script kiddies have disappeared. Some of them may be lured by the money to be earnt as network engineers and security consultants, but not all. It doesn't really matter how many vanity hackers or script kiddies there are - it's the _real_ hackers that count and Mike would do well to remember that it's these hackers who never make it into the news. Why? Because they don't want to be famous and they're too good to get caught. Dodger -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 13:13:32 PDT