Russians Claim Their Hackers the Best In the World

Ant writes "ZDNet UK reports that Russians who once hacked for fun are now teaming up to get rich through cybercrime, according to police. The Russian cybercrime division, known as Department K, has warned that Russian hackers are the best in the world. From the article: 'Everyone knows that Russians are good at math...Our software writers are the best in the world, that's why our hackers are the best in the world.'"

Comments

-1 Flamebait

[DarkHelmet]

This story should be flagged -1 flamebait.

I mean, seriously... back in the days of Soviet Russia (must resist), there used to be propaganda that claimed that a Russian invented the lightbulb, and other stuff like that.

This is no better than American Patroitism. As an American, let me say that we are NOT the best country in the world, and that any time we say that we are, we sound as silly as the russians here.

Anyway, I'd loooove to hear what the Chinese hackers have to say about this.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Thomas Miconi]

It is an undisputed fact that the Soviets and Eastern Europeans were superior to the West in mathematics and abstract theoretical physics. The Soviet school built around Kolmogorov is the prominent example of this superiority.

The fact is easy to explain: mathematics and theoretical physics don't cost much. All you need is a pencil and a sheet of paper. So the Soviets diverted most of their resources to these domains, simply because they could not afford the experimental apparatus necessary for chemistry, physics or molecular biology.

Now, whether or not this distinction still holds in today's Putinian Russia is another matter entirely...

Thomas-

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

The lightbulb was invented in 1854 by Johann Goebel (http://www.friarsmarketing.com/commercial/general .html).

The phone by some italian i dont remenber the name of, the television by some scot and etc etc etc.
Yt really shows the power of [american] marketing that product-copying is perceived as innovation.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's basically something that has risen out of lack of law and order, yes?

That's oversimplifying.

Russia has top notch schools cranking out top notch programmers, and no jobs for them. At all. A frightening level of Russia's wealth is concentrated in the Mafia, and in order for stealing them more, they pay more per month than most Russian citizens earn legitimately per year (Which still isn't much). What police there are who actually desire to establish law and order are either killed, threatened, or bribed into complacency. Politicians on the National scale are busy stealing power while politicians on the local scale are busy stealing cash wherever and whenever they can, forming a bona fide kleptocracy.

It's not just 'a lack of law and order'. It's a lack of law and order and legitimate jobs and money in a place with well educated and well trained populace with a very strong criminal organization.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[MemoryDragon]

It is also, how the society in soviet russia treated people in mathematics.

I wanna give you an example, there is a reason why 90% of the best chess players come from russia. It is not that those people generally are smarter, but over here, if a kid loves math, chess or generally science, it is branded as a nerd or freak and subject to the heavy beating by the other kids. It either drops out of the field and becomes something mediocre (fill in the average lawyer, business crook in here) or follows the path and now faces the situation of getting constant beating by the management in a company which sees their researchers not as assets anymore but more as a cost reduction point which has to be outsourced to another country. It does not matter in the end that the company will run out of new products a few years later, because the management gets the golden handshake.

Not a good idea to follow this career path, even if you have an enourmous talent.

Ah, yes, we love that stuff

[Mr_Icon]

Government official: "Russia has the ${SUPERLATIVE} ${SKILL}ers in the world! Now, please to be watchink while we're going to collectively ignore this wonderful asset, and instead of introducing initiatives to aide the growth in this area, we're going to stuff our pockets with free money while bickering with our opponents."