Internet Crime Focus of Black Hat Europe

kierny writes "'The Internet needs crime,' said renowned cryptographer Whitfield Diffie, kicking off the Black Hat Europe conference in Amsterdam. His analysis — that there can't be good guys without bad guys — helps explain not just the rise of black hat hackers and, more recently, hacktivism, but signals that the information security profession will continue to not just be relevant, but demanded, especially as the number of data-spewing devices increases exponentially."

Comments

every article needs a first post

[Nyder]

so then we can have replies.

Re:every article needs a first post

[Sneeka2]

Ah, grasshopper... the article _is_ the first post. What we need after that is a frist post.

You blew it.

Good can exist without evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes there can be good guys without bad guys.

Closed system.

A boy scout helps an old lady across the street.
Is the boy scout good? I would say yes.
Then, where is the bad guy in this example? The old lady?

The old argument that good needs evil to survive is wrong.

Re:Good can exist without evil

[Sneeka2]

Then, where is the bad guy in this example?

The car driver coming down the street at 200mph. Without him, there'd be no need to help the old lady across the street in the first place, she could do it alone.

QED.

Re:Good can exist without evil

[mwvdlee]

Without a lunatic driving at ridiculous speed, there is still a real danger for honest accidents and there'd still be a need to help the old lady across the street.
Good guys require bad events, which may or may not include events caused by guys.
Likewise, without black hat hackers there'd still be a need to protect against accidental or unintentional damage.

Re:Good can exist without evil

[justforgetme]

The (inherent) bad guy in this situation is the danger of the street.
If there is no danger there is no definition for good.

Same goes for limitations, ignorance etc. You can't have it all so
in some respect you always are bad and good. It's like Schrödinger's
feline example with you being the poison.

Re:Good can exist without evil

[Ihmhi]

It need not be an evil person driving a car. In this closed system it could just be another old person driving a Buick. The old person is not evil, just too old to be driving.

The Buick may be evil. We can't be sure. At least it's not a Lincoln Town Car - those things are downright Satanic.

We need thieves, arsonists, rapists and murderers

[leehanxue]

... so that the fire brigade, police and other law enforcement officers will not be out of work.

No good guys

[DarkOx]

I think there is actually more to this than many slashdotors are dismissing the "no good guys without the bad" as. The things that turns a bad guy into a bad guy are motives and opportunity. Having the skills is a big part of opportunity. Even with the economy as it is most of us in the Western World with education and experience required to be security professionals can make a better living doing that or at least avoid the risks associated with being a criminal while living comfortably. That is not true in some other places and its possible it could become untrue here.

So maybe there is something to the pushing "hacking is cool" is a bad idea thought. Creating tons of security 'professionals' might just be creating tomorrows black hats mob employees. Sorta like in places all over the world yesterdays soldier has become today's insurgent and or revolutionary. They know the business of war, and its a huge leg up. Knowing is actually I think more than half the battle. I am not saying we should all stop attending $CON and talking to each other about developing better techniques to identify weaknesses. If we did that the integrity of the system would stop improving, and the few bad guys that will be out there anyway, even if working in a vacuum, will be completely unchecked.

University systems and other stuff got owned all the time in the 70's and 80's before the Internet exited to facilitate communication among black hats, grey hats, and white hats. I don't know what the answer is and I don't really think trying to censor information is ever a good approach but none the less there is something to think about here.

Re:No good guys

[DarkOx]

That is pretty much what I was thinking about. If you have ever worked with or even watched a professional pen test team the first thing you notice (if they are any good) is they target collaboration tools that are integrated with stuff like Nessus, Nmap, and Metasploit ( the pro version has build in collaboration tools already).

You have one person identifying and classifying, and others going after hosts according to specialty, finally you have them sharing information between each other when they discover credential pairs, network topology etc.

If I had to guess I bet the bad guy tools existed first, someone saw them and commercialized them; made them better and now the bad guys use them.

Black, White, so clear - In Other News....

[riondluz]

At least here in the good ol' U S of A, Ms Napolitano is redefining the word terrorist to include anyone having a minor beef w/the "System" and our wonderful Dept of Justice, in consort with a congress that has the lowest approval rating in history, pushing hard for 'hacking' to become a crime of terror.

I wouldn't be surprised if someday soon just running Linux and 'non-approved' applications will get you on the 'black-hat', 'no computer for you!, list.

Remind me, who are the good guys again? Because I remember a recent /. story which aluded to the 'netgods of the 70/80's being upset and saying "don't screw w/our creation, or ELSE!"

Maybe they'll become our next action heros, followed by legions of anonymous; wearing grayhats and fawkes' masks. I know I'd rather see them behind the wheel than a hoard of monkey-bots sitting in the glare their RoundUp RPT screens panting 'think of the children (and god knows who else)', deploying their micro keyhole-sats to hover over illegal hot-spots to catch us wankers in the act of sharing our packages; telling us to "get off THEIR lawn".