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School Teaches 'Ethical Hacking'
Yardboy writes "A Yahoo! News/Reuters story discusses students in Los Angeles paying $4,000 to attend 'Hacker College' and become 'Certified Ethical Hackers'. Apparently: 'Instructors race through topics like symmetric versus asymmetric key cryptography (symmetric is faster), war dialing (hackers will always call late at night) and well-known TCP ports and services (be wary of any activity on Port 0)', and the president of the college: says 'What we attempt to do in our classes is teach how the hackers think.' Hmmm, perhaps 'Certified Script Kiddie' would be a more accurate designation."
Better watch out, article submitter! Me and my friends are totally gonna DDOS you now!!!!
First day. 2day kidZ, w3 LeRN 2 HaX0R t3H g00d w^y...w00t. OMG. RTFB.
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
What they don't tell you until the PhD course is that it's always late at night somewhere.
Sounds like they are social engineering people out of $4,000.
I wonder how long before they offer the qualification of "Certified Pointy Haired Boss"?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Sporting long sideburns, a bushy goatee and black baseball cap, instructor Ralph Echemendia has a class...
He wears a black hat, and we're expected to believe that he's teaching ethical hacking? It's a cover! He's building an army! TERRORISTS!!!
do not read this line twice.
Wake me up when they offer Ethical Racketeering, Ethical Pimping, and Ethical Congressional Campaigning.
I'm offering 5 dollars to help a poor Microsoft programmer attend this school, where he will learn how hackers think in order to stop them. Maybe if we all contribute to the pool, we'll have easier lives.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
4r3 7h3y c3r71f13d 1n 1337sp34k? j00 c4n't b3 4 h4x0r w17h0u7 1337sp34k. ;-)
Do you like German cars?
This is an outrage to all of us who toiled for years to become script kiddies and received no formal documentation of our accomplishments.
I do security
...of self knowledge and recognized accomplishment amongst your peers that only MCSEs have enjoyed up to now.
Recent graduates of the 'Hacker College' realize that their diploma is virtually worthless in the real world and come to realize that they were just socially enginered out of $4000 dollars.
Do they get a white hat with the certificate?
And paid for it with credit card numbers I stole from various hotmail accounts.
Woah. If the course is lectured by Angelina Jolie, I'll cough up my 4KUSD in about 3 seconds flat ;)
This is true 'ethical' hacking. And you don't even have to go to school to learn it. Well never mind, you have to go to school...
NMG
Be careful with dynamic memory.
Watch for stack overflows.
Always restrict access as much as possible.
Use the strongest encryption available depending on the sensitivity of your data.
Turn off all services that you don't use.
Don't set your root password to root.
Assume every user has bad motives.
Plan for the worst.
Send $4000 and a self addressed, stamped envelope with your name as you would like it to appear on your certificate.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
(1) Do as I say, not as I do.
(2) Do it to someone else, not to me.
(3) You learned this from someone else, not from me.
-kgj
-kgj
75% of the graduating class is under house arrest for hacking back into the schools' cc merchant account servers and getting their $4000 back. The other 25% also stole back their money, but couldn't be traced, and are presumed at large.
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The course seems pretty expensive and probably not exactly ideal, but it's a bit more than just script-kiddiesm. Unless, of course, the tests look like this:
Q: You are the IT manager of an online business. The owner is pleased to announce that the business has enjoyed rapid growth, and has asked you to prepare an outline of system upgrades and estimated costs to deal with an estimated 8,000 daily visitors consuming approximately 320KB, with the number of visitors doubling every six months. What are your main concerns likely to be? (circle all that apply)
a) Cost of expanded bandwidth utilization
b) Maintenance issues associated with a medium-sized server farm, as well as software concerns regarding your web application and load balancing
c) Continued self-hosting via the corporate T1 line vs. co-location
d) wtf ???? ummm just run linux+apache d00d !!!!!
Q: You are a consultant, hired to evaluate the security and efficiency of a small business's server configuration. Your employer, inexperienced with both the technology itself as well as online business in general, has hinted to you that he's not certain how competent his system administrator Simon is. In evaluating the systems, you discover that Simon has misappropriated the server budget to upgrade his desktop system to play Unreal Tournament 2k4, and has left the actual servers themselves equipped with 386s and faulty hard disks. As you were confronting him about this in the server room, he excused himself from the room to fetch "documentation" while his young and pimply-faced apprentice tripped the halon fire extinguishers. What should your reaction be?
a) Immediately contact the police.
b) Inform the manager, and urge him to speak with the apprentice's parents about a possible intervention.
c) Return a favorable report after realizing that you have become tangled with things far larger than you, and never interfere with those servers again.
d) whats a halon fire
Q: A company has suffered a break-in. Not having a security professional on-hand, they have turned to you as a forensics consultant to help them assess the damage, identify the point of origin, and take appropriate response measures. What will your first action be?
a) Request a list of all servers on the network with their operating systems, as well as servers and version numbers.
b) Unplug the servers.
c) Inquire if there is any way an employee could have accessed the servers.
d) Ask your friends on EFNet if they did it.
Could you imagine having your snailmail box /.'d? It would be fun to get a PO Box and post it on here a few times....
hmmm i wonder what the school's called
maybe "0wnz U"?