Hackers

I have a studied interest in computer hacking — starting from when I found the password to the grading system in my highschool and thus infiltrated the inner sanctum. (Did I change my grades? Of course not. What would be the point? I had straight A’s all four years anyway. But it was nice to see some of my friends beg.)

I would never do anything illegal, but I understand the point of a hack — superiority. That is why I pointed out at a work meeting that breaking into the entire PR database was a matter of backspacing part of an IP address. Did I alter one iota of the database that I wasn’t supposed to be in anyway? Again, of course not. What would that have gotten me? I hardly wanted to be fired, and most people wouldn’t have seen the humor. The point was simply getting in.

So you might imagine my surprise to “discover” DefCon. A place for people like me! Non-criminals who enjoy breaking into things merely as intellectual fodder for the constantly cud-chewing mind. I had heard of DefCon, but I assumed it was a place for code monkeys. Although I know enough computer language to get by in my cyber-intensive lifestyle, if my coding skills were translated into a real language I would be one of those people still pointing at the menu and holding up fingers for the number of coffees I wanted, praying I would get the right flavor. I pretty much learn what I have to, and don’t spend a lot of time trying to get in “the back door” of anything, the front door being quite enough challenge for me, thank you.

But in DefCon, they teach such sundry skills as lock-picking and game-altering…hmmm, this is sounding more like it. They have presentations from people about security — how a uniform and a piece of cardboard will get you further than any coding skills. This is my kind of language. After all, my first hack was by finding that the computer teacher at my highschool had left the administrator passwords used to start up the system intact and usable and stashed neatly in a filing cabinet in his classroom. Oh what a gift for us poor geeks pounding out extra credit after hours! Apparently, the DefCon presenters were made of just the same stuff.

Anyway, I love this article, love that they shouted “Burn the witch!” and chased the reporter all the way to her car. And now, for your enjoyment…

Middle America, Meet the Hackers
from Forbes
written by Andy Greenburg

Photo: (Thomas Pikaart, Forbes.com) Game developers Julian Spillane and a hacker known as Ne0n Ra1n are working on a game that reads a player’s stress levels by monitoring heart rate and perspiration levels via an electrode on his or her finger. The game resembles Tetris; but when the player becomes stressed, blocks descend more quickly. The idea, Ne0n Ra1n says, is to teach people with anxiety disorders or other neuroses to control their mental state. “I want to be remembered as the one who killed Prozac,” she says.

Don’t try to hack the hackers.

That’s what Dateline NBC’s Associate Producer Michelle Madigan learned at this year’s DefCon, the largest gathering of hackers, crackers and security professionals in the world. Going undercover, she hoped to reveal cybercriminals talking openly about their illegal exploits. Instead, the sting backfired: A conference organizer outed her in a room filled with thousands of her would-be targets.

The crowd, usually a friendly group despite some vampirish clothes and complexions, wasn’t pleased. As a few chanted “burn the witch,” Madigan scurried out of the Riviera Hotel to her car, with about 150 hackers-turned-hecklers in pursuit.

DefCon’s inhospitable treatment of Madigan wasn’t just because she was missing a press badge, says one conference spokesman who goes by the handle “Priest.” She had also missed the point. By focusing on the bad apples, Priest says, Madigan was glossing over DefCon’s true spirit: smart people getting together to mess around with technology.

“Middle America thinks we’re stealing your social security numbers, raping your children and breaking into your bank account,” he says. “The reality is, we are the ultimate explorers. We see a technology, and we want to know how it works.”

That exploration goes well beyond invading the closed corners of the Internet. DefCon’s more than 6,000 attendees hack everything: their cars, to increase horsepower and remove pesky safety and emissions controls; their brains, using biofeedback receptors attached to videogames to relieve anxiety disorders; even the war in Iraq. One Navy engineer gave a presentation detailing the nine months he spent hacking insurgent bombs, jamming their radio frequencies to prevent detonation.

“The people who built the Mars rovers are hackers,” says Jeff Moss, also known as “Dark Tangent,” the hacker who has organized DefCon for the last 15 years. “We generally like hacks that aren’t nefarious, that involve figuring something out from the ground up. That’s what we try to reward here.”

That kind of harmless hacking was channeled into a variety of competitions at the conference, including a lockpicking contest and a game of capture the flag, in which teams earned points by stealing bits of each other’s data.

Of course, DefCon still attracts some true “black hat” hackers, bent on learning the newest tools for illegal intrusion, sabotage, espionage and credit card theft. And what attracts cybercriminals also attracts cybercops; any attendee who can verify the identity of an undercover cop wins an “I Spotted the Fed” T-shirt.