Hacker Jeff Moss Sworn Into Homeland Security Advisory Council

Wolfgang Kandek writes "Hacker Jeff Moss, founder of computer security conferences DEFCON and Black Hat, has been sworn in as one of the new members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) of the DHS. Moss, who goes by the handle 'the Dark Tangent' says he was surprised to be asked to join the council and that he was nominated to bring an 'outside perspective' to its meetings. He said, 'I know there is a new-found emphasis on cybersecurity, and they're looking to diversify the members and to have alternative viewpoints. I think they needed a skeptical outsider's view because that has been missing.'"

Comments

Re:Maybe Jeff can explain this

[osu-neko]

I see a number of people have answered, but none have giving a simple and straightforward explanation to what's wrong with your question.

Simply put: Unix does not store your password. If you've been told Unix stores your password encrypted somewhere, someone was glossing over the details to the point of making false statements. People can't reverse the process of decrypting your password because your password isn't stored there to begin with.

If you want to know what is actually stored, follow the previous advice about looking up hashing algorithms. Quick a dirty answer: when you first type in your password, a hashing algorithm is run over it and a hash code is produced, which is stored. When it prompts anyone for your password, it doesn't know the correct answer, but whatever answer anyone gives, it runs through the same hashing algorithm and sees if it produces the same result. The odds of two different strings producing the same hash result vary with the algorithm but it can be something like 1 in 2^160.

But the short answer is, your password cannot be decrypted because it wasn't encrypted and stored to begin with. There's nothing to decrypt.

Re:Good luck with that, Jeff

[The Dark Tangent]

Thanks for the encouragement! I serve at the pleasure of the Secretary, and will do my best to give the HSAC and her the information and opinions I think are necessary to make informed and non-lame decisions. The rest will be up to the powers that be. Like someone said in another post, I have no horse in this race. I'll try to make a positive change and if I feel I can't because I am the wrong person for the job then I'll step aside for someone who can.