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Hacker U.
Karma 50 writes: "What is claimed to be the world's first school for "hackers" has recently opened in Paris. Run by the magazine hackerz voice, for $60 or so you will be taught the fine art of breaking into systems. Google will do some translation of the course details. The local police are said to be "watching the school with interest"."
this must be some kind of a joke ..
/. story. How can you pretend to be a serious 'hacking school' when your homepage uses l33t sp34k and states that the 'school' itself has a black pirate flag pirate flag on the front and graffiti inside ?
:)
I wonder how it made it to a
it all becomes clear when you look at the intended audience : http://www.dmpfrance.com/zh05.JPG 31337 isn't it
Here.
I heard about that on national TV. It's just lame.
HackerZvoice is just a crappy "magazine", 20 pages long. It contains usefull tips like "How to bypass the Windows 98 password in 30 seconds" or "How to mount an publicly shared NFS drive remotely and feel 3l33t".
It makes me ashamed to live in France. Hopefully we don't have the DMCA over here...
Nobox: Only simple products.
Send your script kiddie to obedience school!
Bad script kiddy! BAD!
CyberArmy is a similar outfit for the training and promotion of hacking knowledge. From their homepage:
Welcome to CyberArmy - an independant army / union of over 50,000 Internet users, fighting for a free and independant internet. We need more recruits, so join the CyberArmy now! With our online promotional system you can gain officer status in the CyberArmy and take more part in mission proposals, missions, and division commands. Over the following months, we will be focussing our efforts against governmental controls over the net. To re-state the philosophy of the CyberArmy:
CyberArmy is a group of netizens who believe in a deregulated Internet, which is free from external control. We believe in providing tools to assist others who believe in a free Internet - we support Open Source. We campaign against those who abuse the free nature of the Internet. We believe that spammers, child pornographers, web based scammers, and malicious hackers are enemies of the Internet. We believe that the Internet can be self-regulated, and that we, as equipped and knowledgable netizens, can control and suppress abusers of the Internet, with legal methods, by consolidating together as a united CyberArmy.
Why the fuck does this appear on /.? EVERYBODY with half a clue in computer stuff laughed at these guys here in France, and cursed the journalists who gave this losers such exposure.
They are just a bunch of lame'o script kiddies wannabe.
Just to give you an idea of their stupidity, their publication (Hacker'Z voice) has been repeatedly caught publishing others' articles (see for example this article at linuxfr.org) calling it their own work.
The most striking example of their kiddie-ness is probably their spelling (both in French and English); I know, I know, flaming someone on spelling isn't exactly glorious, but when the ratio goes above one spelling error per word (and I'm not making this up), you've seriously got to wonder.
Oh, but wait! They're even more sorry fucks than you'd think. Look at their über-zekure registration form for their university: yoohoo, ACTION="mailto:...". Those guys can't even get fucked to install SSL!
Couple links for completeness:
Hacker Z Voice site
Hacker U site
Hacking is a Good Thing. It teaches skills and leads to important security holes being filled. By learning about these holes, everyone benefits with the joys of greater knowledge (wooo! Alturistic :) ) But there are already places where you can learn hacking. They call themselves: Universities.
A lot of courses (at least the ones I have seen) provide a foundation in how to hack, simply because it is the only way to make sure that any systems you create are secure, and tests new technology as well. For example, I've seen two Universites here in the UK that do this. At the University of Bristol, they are researching into how to hack smart chips, whilst University of Nottingham let you try and hack their network. Of course, this is all built into a well-rounded course teaching students Computer Science.
Where does that leave the idea of "hacking schools"? It puts them quite definitely in the malicious camp. If these people were hacking to increase their skills, they would be taught other things at the same time (ala University). But this "school" is starting people out with hacking, and giving a few lessons in C and Linux for those that don't know. It's not about being a better computer user, it's about being a better hacker, which can only be used for the more nefarious of purposes.
On the bottom of this page you'll find the following text:
Last news, special a Newbie course "Language C" has been just assembled.
You gotta love automated language translation!
Hmm, wait a minute - a non-techie english speaker might write the same thing, lol.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
but this would be considered a Cracking school, not a Hacking school. A Hacking school would teach logic, problem solving, and finding unusual solutions to everyday problems. If we expect the public to differentiate the two, we have to lead by example.
...which teaches you, amongst other things, how to invent false credit card details and fiddle your mobile phone bills.
...if you want to pay by credit card, do it over the phone.
Furthermore, I find this article to be full of horrible and misleading information.
At the end, they hope to have improved their "white hat" or good pirate - skills.
Ok... What exactly is a 'good pirate'? For that matter, how does piracy (or hacking for that matter) even enter into this article.
Nevertheless, "Clad" is adamant that he teaches only ethical hacking skills.
Umm... Yeah. Right. There are perfectly ethical reasons to do these things.
"For me", he says, "it is enough to know I can break into a system, without crossing the line into illegality."
Breaking into a system is illegal. Even if it's not in the country where you live, there is no way that it's ethical. But at least the article presents a consenting view on this.
Hacking is illegal.
That's like saying thinking is illegal.
"I teach them ethical values," Clad Strife told me. "It's not my responsibility if they use my information to do something illegal at home.
I disagree. If you teach a trade that is very likely to be used for malice, it is your responsibility to make sure that you teach it to people who will not misuse it. For example, in the U.S. military, there are weeks of training in which discipline is taught. We don't just give anyone machine guns and send them off. If you were teaching bomb making to your neighbors, you would be a bit more caring to make sure that they behave responsible!
"[Cracking] is not fundamentally illegal. After all, when you're driving a car, you can knock someone over and kill them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to have driving lessons, does it?"
Umm... No. Your argument does not hold up. Using the logic in reverse you see the flaws. "Hitting people with cars is not fundamentally illegal. After all, when you surf the internet, you might break into someone's computer. But that doesn't mean that people shouldn't be taught to use the computer, does it?" That's just rediculous.
Anyone sending these KIDS their credit card numbers has more to worry about than whether the internet or phone is more secure.
As the school's website says, paying over the internet isn't secure.
Yeah. You wouldn't want the wrong people to have your credit card number! ROFLMAO.
The french course appears to be aimed at crackers rather than legitimate white hat hackers. I doubt it will last long at that price, the first true crackers who attend the course will rip off the material.
Before too long the dweebs will come to the same realisation that the l0pht did, that there is much more money to be made on the enterprise side. They will then get VC, set up a carbon copy of @stake and start wearing suits according to Zeinfeld's law: security consultants who are ex-NSA or MI5 wear jeans and a T shirt, security consultants who are ex-hackers wear suits.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That's an accurate description of what should be an intelligent person pursuing a skill, but is severely judgement impaired.
Reminds me of perfectly grown adults many years ago before the internet who found the CB radio as a hobby. Multi-kilowatt linear amplifiers and outrageous antennas on cars and shack houses were their hallmark. They conducted themselves to be the menace of the society. That was their life goal. To challenge the system. Outlaw freedom fighters of communication. They wanted anarchy on the airwaves.
Most intelligent electronic hackers simply got an FCC license and enjoyed the finer aspects of the airwaves. The comparison was like heaven and hell. 733t hackers simply seem to have a little growing up to do and then they will see the light.
The original reads well. You're reading machine-translated colloquial Parisian French.