Frank Work Quotes
Now we have the hacker kids playing politics.
Describing the increasing trend of young computer hackers who generally had hacked just for the challenge getting involved in hacking with a political and ideological causes—sometimes even working for governments.
Frank Work, Canadian Digital Security Expert, Commissioner of Information & Privacy, Alberta, Canada, “System Crash”, Smithsonian Channel, March 14, 2014
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In addition to the hackers who break into websites for monetary gain, or spying for companies or governments, there are many why just love the challenge of hacking into computers and websites that authorities claim is secure. The reality is that there is no way to absolutely sure a computer or its contents as long as it is connected to the Internet. Those computers and sites that have nothing to hide and do not present a challenge to hackers of this type rarely have problems from them; their vulnerability is to the other hacker who can utilize their computer slo hack still others of paralyze their computer to extract a ransom for functionality. The analogy of the hackers to the barbarian hordes sacking Ancient Rome and the Mongolian hordes sacking Europe is one that many appreciated,
Many computer experts and security operatives view this kind of advice and strategy as counter-productive as there are some computer security extremists who so harden computer systems and networks that they function poorly and cause really harmful operational problems. The classic case was the FBI agent in Minnesota who before 9-11 had information that Muslims foreigners were taking flying lessons. She wanted to get the information to the national security FBI people, but she was not allowed to send the information by e-mail. Instead she had to use a "secure" system that was much slower and could not be viewed by the people who might have been able to connect the dots and do something about it. The FBI has now a better balance between functionality and security, but it is a good example of how "security fanaticism" can make us less safe.
In the early 21st century hackers who committed fraud and stole much money were not considered as serious as hackers who would have a political (anti-government) message display on the government’s own website. The latter were considered much more of a threat than the former although the only “damage” the former did was inconvenience and embarassment to government officials.
There is a constant race between the developers of hacking and cyberattack software and the developers of security and protective software.
