Re: [ISN] Book Review: The Happy Hacker

From: mea culpa <jericho_at_dimensional.com>
Date: Mon 17 Aug 1998 - 08:35:58 CDT
Reply From: Brad Willey <bfwilley@hotmail.com>

>My first impression of the book was a make money fast scheme gone wrong.
>Cashing in on the buzzword of the 90's, Ms. Meinel runs the word 'hacker'
>into the ground by the end of chapter 1. 

>Page 67: "I make my living asking dumb questions." Quoted material is
>straight from the author's mouth, and seems to be dead on with the
>technical level of the book.

During and after the 60's a lot of people in the know about explosives 
believed that the book the anarchist's cookbook had been written or 
edited or influenced by the FBI or some other government organization 
with an eye to having the booby bomber blow him self up. You have to ask 
your self if the above referenced book is poorly written for a reason ( 
to allow easier detection of a happy hacker ) or is it just your 
standard money making crap, that will if packaged (right) *-) write -- 
will form the basis for new legal standards world wide.   Garbage in 
garbage out.......

Brad D Willey


[Moderator: That idea has come up on another list. Why? Because Carolyn
 Meinel submitted a proposal to train the FBI on how to track and find
 hackers. Interesting that she would try to train hackers, NOT teach any
 methods for covering their tracks, then train the FBI to track said
 hackers. It was argued that since she could only train to the "happy
 hacker" level of knowledge, that she could only train the FBI to catch
 the same level of hackers. In doing so, she was playing both sides of
 the field in order to make money off both sides. Her outline for teaching
 the FBI (posted by an ex-business partner) was more than amusing. One
 entire day of the 2/3 day class focused on reading headers of mail to
 track down spammers and mail forgers. While a great skill to have, I
 don't think the FBI are too concerned with spammers, and rarely called
 in to deal with them.]


-o-
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Received on Mon Aug 17 11:20:48 1998
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