t has been almost 14 years since Scott Chasin began BugTraq to discuss computer security vulnerabilities in detail. Since then, it has grown from a small email list to become a top industry source for vulnerability information and, along the way, helped advanced many of the changes in the industry through its full disclosure policy. What a long and strange trip it has been since then. But one thing remains the same, the constant struggle to do what is right in a field full of moral landmines.
Any field that deals in issues of security and safety, from medicine and insurance to airport screening and immigration, will contain many difficult moral dilemmas. Often these problems are rooted in finance and the different ways money incentivizes or disincentivizes people and organizations. Ideally, monetary and other incentives would be aligned with the moral thing to do. Often, though, this is not the case. Just as often, what the moral or right thing to do is not altogether...
The hacking scene is definitely not what it used to be. Though it seems hard to remember, there was a time before vulnerabilities were posted to mailing lists every day, you could sell exploits to corporations and hacking groups were being turned into security companies. There were few established laws restricting hacking and a simple Internet search returned a massive amount of detail on how to hack. It was a time when a few small groups of elite technology enthusiasts, driven largely by curiosity and mischief (vs. malicious) became some of the most notorious and powerful hackers of all time.
This was the era of groups like the Legion of Doom, the Cult of the Dead Cow, the Masters of Deception, the Chaos Computer Club, the P.H.I.R.M., the genesis of zines like Phrack and 2600, and the days when blowing a whistle found in a cereal box into a telephone receiver gave you control of a phone line.
In those days, communication between hackers was mostly...
Hacking has existed in one form or another for quite some time. Just as the Internet grew by leaps and bounds in the '90s, so did the hacking community. While the dot-com bubble thrust the Internet into the general public’s conscience, it also brought hacking into the limelight. Web site defacements and denial of service attacks quickly became commonplace. Naturally, with the rapid growth of the Internet population, a rise in the number of people looking to take advantage of neophyte users also took place.
More hacking groups began forming in the '90s, such as the L0pht. In 1998 members of the L0pht testified before congress that they could shut down the Internet in 30 minutes. In 1992, five members of the Masters of Deception group were indicted in federal court and later plead guilty. The...
Same thing we do every night – try to take over the world…
Morris and Brain. The average person doesn’t know these names very well in comparison to Melissa, CodeRed, Nimda, Slammer, and Funlove. They all had their day and are burned in the memories of the users who were infected and those who cleaned up after them. Without Morris and Brain, though, the current “superstars” wouldn’t exist.
The early years of the 1980s were marked by great technological advancements, particularly the release of the first integrated and powerful personal computers. Apple introduced the “Apple II” microcomputer in 1977, and by the early 80s it was one of the most popular personal computers for business users, families, and schools. In 1981, computing giant IBM purchased the license to distribute the DOS operating system for their PC machines from an obscure company called Microsoft. At that time, computing companies were popping up quickly. The early 80s saw numerous home computers for sale, such as the Commodore 64 (1982) and the Atari ST (1985).
It sounds funny now thinking of those “extraordinary” computers of 80s while sitting on a desk with a modern hyper-threading CPU, gigabytes of memory, and wireless connection. Still, the 80s were the years during which personal computers established their foothold in homes and offices. For the first time people start...
Steal this book! F@&! the System! Do those phrases bring back any memories? For me, they conjure up images of Chicago’s Old Towne & New York’s Greenwich Village in the late '60s and early '70s. And that seems like a fitting start for a blog entry on computer security because…well, it’s a long story.
In the 1960s, some rather interesting people gained more than a little attention based on their innate ability to understand how things work and their desire to use that knowledge to help rebel against the perceived “authority system” of the day. One group of such people, the Youth International Party, or yippies as they were more commonly known, was frequently in the news. They were self-proclaimed representatives of the youth of the nation and were prominent activists during...
