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A Peek At Script Kiddie Culture
Brian Bruns writes "NewsForge is covering an article on the Script Kiddie Culture, in an interview with my co-admin Andrew Kirch. It provides insight into a culture that not many people fully understand, or get to see."
..or want to see.
Use Minidisc? Join the Minidisc.org forums.
...or care about.
Are people looking for some Gibson-esque secret cabal of script kiddies, who are building operating systems at age 8, can speak in hex, and have secret h4X0r access to everywhere?
I think people watch too many movies. Or is defining 'script kiddies' as a culture an attempt to rationalize the level of ignorance we experience when trying to comprehend all of computing technology? Since nobody can be good at everything, is it a mental safety valve to create uber-computer users, who 'get it', who can do 'cool things', who are 'in the know'? Isn't this the same thing as creating Gods to explain otherwise unknown natural phenomena?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The most amusing implications are:
a) Its a culture.
b) Someone would actually want to see it.
10 years ago I did the script kid thing for a bit (before having a life). Its a bunch of kids who's parents are not really involved in their lives, and have nothing better to do than look for a digital mate by typing "A/S/L?!?!??! and talking about their privates.
I could seriously care less.
Look no further.
From what I understand of script kiddies they mostly do stuff from sheer boredom (what ever happened to the good ole outdoors?) and for the extra pseudo attention they get from it. Surely by attempting to interview and do articles on this 'culture' they are just pandering to the desires of these script kiddies. And rather than helping them to realise that they need to grow up etc, the extra attention is only going to make them have a greater desire to wreak havock with their 'leet skills'
If at first you DON'T succeed, Skydiving is NOT for YOU!!
Back in my day, we didn't have computers. We would see how long we could balance on a flagpole or we would see how many goldfish we could fit in a telephone booth. Hell, once I danced the Charleston on a flagpole for 12 hours. Won me a brand new LaSalle. Now, pranks and mischief are all electronic, done with them newfangled computers by them so called script-kiddies.
Takes the fun out of being a kid if you ask me. Hmmmpphh
Unknown host pong.
From an admin's perspective, a DDoS is the scariest attack of all. There's nothing you can do to prevent it, and nothing you can do to stop it.
An admin whose network is being DDoSed really doesn't have much hope of doing anything. Their inbound communication line to the outside world is being flooded with so much garbage information, the signals that they want to get over that line are simply drowned out. Incoming connections can't get a turn going down the pipe, so they time out. He's powerless, everything in his shop is nice and secure, but can't function without geting any useful requests. That poor admin can call his ISP... but there's really not much the ISP can do from their side of the line.
The real problem in a DDoS attack is not that the final victim's security has gone wrong, but the security of other computers elsewhere on the Internet have been compromised, and they've been turned into zombies contributing to the DDoS flood. The DDoS will not subside until nearly all those machines are all patched, but that's not something the victim's people can do. They have to wait for the Anti-Virus providers and software providers to knock down the flamethrowers that are all being shot in the same direction.
Any time you're relying on third parties who don't work for you to save your business, you're really up a creek and are throwing yourself on the mercy of the tech world. Hopefully they'll save you in time, because there's really not much you can do from your own datacenter.
We had a script kiddie (didnt know it at first) trying desperatley to hack several of our servers, I reckognized the IP block he was on and called up my buddy who was the sysadmin for the ISP he was connected from, Soooo he gave mne his name and address. Me and my dad Im 6'2 230 lbs and my dad looks like george carlin on steroids, well we knocked on the door of a very nice house at about 4:00 pm , to the door comes a pimpled faced rugrat about 14, I told him we were here about the hacking attempt on our server, the kid turned purple, andd I honest to gfod thought he was gonna piss himself , we had a nice little discussion and told him the next call was to the FBI for attempted bank robbery as we hosted several credit unions, never had anymore problems from this fellow. We did take a baseball bat along just in case he was bigger than we were , This was going back some time 96 or so.
Krikey... here we see the script kiddie in his native habitat, his parents spare room... look at how he asks for warez and 733t scriptz in AOL chatrooms...
We musn't approach too quickly or we'll startle the little feller...
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
...the interviewed party sounds like he's making things up as he goes along for greater exposure and interest. There is nothing there that jumps out to me and says "liar", but at the same time, I think that the interviewee might have been, er thinking about this topic too much and might be blowing things out of proportion just a little bit.
Do people on IRC attack conference line services? Oh yes, I've seen it being done several times, and FoF is something of a wheel in this scene. Are said hijacked conference lines used for neferious purposes? I'm sure once in a while, but really they are mostly used for the purposes of socialization... same as has been the case with phreaking the past.
What do people do the first time they phreak? They call a faraway place and talk to someone just because it is neat to talk to someone in England, or Fiji or somewhere far away without cost.
What is the primary use of these phreak'd conference lines? Socialization, a way for people who are geographically distant who have got to know each other on IRC to talk to each other without cost. Believe you me, the content of these conversations is far more likely to contain dreary e/n stuff rather than Plots To Take Over The World.
The intimation that this culture could somehow be for sale to nefarious people and powers is frankly outrageous and hysterical at the very same time.
-- benton.
I think it's mainly a result of the "generation gap".... You've got parents who know very little about their own computers, and their kids who are pretty comfortable getting around online with it.
I've known quite a few kids/teens who got into loads of mischief with their PC, despite having otherwise caring and pretty observant parents.
Their folks were just sucked into the idea that their kids spending a lot of time on the computer had to be a "good thing", since they were learning "useful skills" and "doing something more educational than sitting around, watching TV".
There are plenty of things to blame parents for, but this is probably not really one of them. If you're the parent of a kid who is of "above average intelligence" and generally seems to stay out of trouble (not doing drugs and partying all night long, etc. etc.), and you're not too computer literate yourself -- just how much are you supposed to do when he/she figures out how to DoS corporate networks with his/her newfound online buddies?
Here is a much better site portraying script kiddie culture on a daily basis
I'm betting that the kiddies play a role, in much the same way the messenger does for the author of the letter.
And like the messenger, they are more likely to get shot by the good guys when the let a hack loose into the wild.
Could it be that a few black (and possibly white) hatters find that they serve a purpose?
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
didnt = didn't
reckognized = recognized
mne = me
Im = I'm
andd = and
gfod = god
Damn... I sure as hell hope you're not a programmer at your job. If so, I'd love to see some of your code
#!/usr/been/purl
opin(INFILE,"/etc/paswd") || die("Fil naught fownd");
Sorry about making fun of you, please don't bring your dad to my house.
A Peek At Script Kiddie Culture
Posted by timothy on Saturday March 06, @06:03PM
We all know "5cr1p7 k1dd13z" don't have much of a social life, so there should be plenty of them around to comment on this article on a Saturday night. The Slashdot editors are smarter than a lot of people want to give them credit for.
Rank Presidents by th
Paul Vixie quoted in the article (via a link)
'Recommendation: upgrade your peering requirements to include language like:
Each peer agrees to emit only IP packets with accurate
source addresses, to require their customers to do likewise,
and to extend this requirement to all other peers by $DATE.
Where DATE = (now() + '6 months') or some other negotiated value.
Peering agreements are so thick with political BS, they can't even stop ISP's like UUNet who are the biggest spam friendly ISP's around.
Basically everyone is trying to use standards for protocols to correct this, engineers trying to correct political problems.
Kids do all sorts of anti-social stuff, but, even when they're mostly minding their own business, they get pissed on. I love it how everyone expects *teenagers* to spend their free time caring for puppies and the homeless.
Here in a decent-sized city in the (yay) midwest, the evening activities available to those under eighteen are: bowling, cruising, wandering the streets aimlessly, and, ummm, well that's pretty much it.
Everything in town closes at 9:00. *Public* parks close. There's a constant crackdown on 'cruising' for some reason. There's an 11:00 curfew for everyone under-18.
So, the choices for a kid growing up around here are: 'sit in your room all evening with your computer' or 'break some sort of law'. Apparently, now our fearless leaders have found a way to make 'sitting in your room' against the law as if they would rather these kids be roaming the streets vandalizing cars and buildings. Great.
At least, this way, they are actually learning some things about computers and causing *very* little damage in the process. I think we all need to be a little more realistic: kids cost money and destroy things. The fact that *the internet* isn't a little more kid-proof should be of more concern to everyone than the slightly-less-than-moral decisions made by a bunch of teenagers.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
but his employees may suffer in effeciency...
because they are wanking off to said 'pr0n'
I'm sure the "good souls at NAMBLA" will appreciate us calling attention to a society of 'kiddies' who have no social life, know how to chat about 'body parts', and exchange nude pictures over the Internet.
Anywho...with that said here's my $.02:
I think that everyone posting above me has their own valid points which I shall paraphrase here.
1. We don't want money being thrown away to fight a battle that may or may not be won, if winning is even a real possibility.2. We can agree that the actions of these "script kiddies" is to some degree detrimental to business. Seeing as how s#it rolls down hill, it can also have an impact on us blue collar folks. I think it's accurate to say that the negative impact will grow and become more noticeable as time passes.
So, what kind of happy medium can be found amidst the viewpoints which say either "It's a waste of resources to fight." or "Something must be done."?
Should officials not try to trim the fat from current programs and then allocate the new resources to fight this growing problem? I'm responding here off the cuff so I sheepishly admit I don't have a prepared list of potential candidates for severence. But, therein lies my question; Where is the government and general law enforcement concentrating that is perhaps irrelevant.
I know plenty of people here can come up with a long list of things our government wastes money on. Furthermore I'll bet'cha we can get over half those involved in the discussion to agree to the slashing of this or that. What say ye pantheon of knowledge?
---
Every hour wounds. The last one kills.
Mt dew is a great agar for growing script kiddies...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
It's easier to sell companys, government agentcys and cable modem users on using reasonable security precautions with half a million children running around with viruses and such looking to screw with anyone who gives them half a chance than it is to sell them on the notion that the 6 big bad nasty terrorist black hatters will crush them like a grape if they make the sligtest mistake.
People will assume they are safe from the big time terrorist dude becouse "I'm not a sereous target".
DDoS attacks against major targets use hacked cable modem users desktops.
Spammers use Worms to establish a spamming network.
ID theft resulting from the simplist of mistakes.
That stuff happening today.
When telling people how important security is:
With out script kiddies
"Why would anyone attack me?"
"Your system can be used as a launching point for all sorts of attacks"
"Yeah right."
It's hard for a person to picture how "they alone" could be be a target and they'd be right becouse they aren't alone. But the details sound like SiFi to most people and they tune you out.
With script kiddies.
"Why would anyone want to attack me?"
"Becouse your an easy target. Script kiddies need no other reason"
I don't actually exist.
Maybe it's still too early in the morning for me, but I didn't understand much of what that article said. OK, Kiddies organize in gangs and they hang out on IRC. What else is going on?? What does the 'war' consist of, who controls more machines on the internet? And it's being fought by copy & pasting the lastet Viri, Trojan Horses etc. and spreadng them around? Why can't IRC be secured, after all those years?
Some understandable explanations would be much appreciated...