>Russian hackers have been blamed for several high-profile >cyber-attacks in recent years, their Western targets ranging from >CDUniverse.com to Microsoft to NATO. At the same time, Russian police >say computer-related crimes such as stealing credit card numbers or >pirating software are rising dramatically at home as well. <snip> >"The best ones are all in Ukraine," Yevgeny said. "They are in high >demand from banks and other organizations, and sometimes they are >taken by bandit groups against their will. There are no more clever or >talented people anywhere else, not in America, not in Canada." Let's get one thing crystal clear: breaking into an Internet-connected system, no matter how well fortified, does not elevate you into the rarified atmosphere of the world's most elite hackers. Hacking is a complex artform that encompasses far more than cleverly guessing a poorly constructed password or smashing a stack from a program that lacks even rudimentary variable bounds checking. You want world-class hacking? Try porting Unix to the Intel x86 architecture. Try creating your own fully featured computer language from scratch and then writing a multiplatform compiler or interpreter for it. Try writing a functional Linux kernel for a palmtop. Try incorporating RAC/F into BeOS... Stealing credit card numbers from an online shopping cart? That bears roughly the same relationship to hacking that gaining access to a car by busting out the window does to automotive engineering. It's not just apples and oranges; it's apples and doorknobs. There may well be world-class hackers in the Ukraine. But nothing I read in this story is evidence of them. Cheers, RGF Robert G. Ferrell, CISSP ======================================== Who goeth without humor goeth unarmed. ======================================== ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERVat_private with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Apr 17 2001 - 02:58:14 PDT