How an Aussie University Creates the World's Best Hackers

bennyboy64 writes "An Australian university appears to be excelling at cultivating some of Australia's best computer hackers. Following the University of NSW's students recently placing first, second and third in a hacking war game (the first place winners also won first place last year), The Sydney Morning Herald reports on what exactly about the NSW institution is breeding some of Australia's best hackers. It finds that a lecturer and mentor to the students with controversial views on responsible disclosure appears to the be the reason for their success."

Comments

Makes Sense

[phantomfive]

In Universities, it turns out that the individual professors are the most important part of a quality institution. At a small university, a single quality professor can make a huge difference.

Re:Makes Sense

[Noishe]

Just as my mod points expire...

You're absolutely correct that it's the teachers that matter and not the institution.

Mind you, the institution also has to have the right culture in place to first attract and then tolerate the actions of teachers like this. I would also extend your point, and say that the professors matter just as much at a large university as they do at a small one.

GCHQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe it's because the curriculum is designed so that Defence Signals Directorate (the Aussie equivalent of GCHQ/NSA) can go there and have a one-stop shop for their new recruits...

Part of it is that they've been at it for a long .

[Coeurderoy]

Part of it is that they've been at it for a long time... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions'_Commentary_on_UNIX_6th_Edition,_with_Source_Code Lions was at the UNSW, getting student to have access to code seems to be a tradition there. I also met a couple of very talented people who got their degrees there in the late 70's early 80's and worked with some of them... It just shows that the right way to run an university is not to worry too much about the curriculum and do the unexpected, even the vaguely illegal. BTW it seems the equivalent document he wrote about the pdp11 unix C compiler is not avaiable, it's sad it was very interesting.

Re:An eminently sensible policy

[westlake]

"We say that you should do whatever you want with the exploit. It's your vulnerability, you found it, it's your thing. You have no obligation to report it at all. In fact, reporting it can get you into a lot of trouble."

It is not your thing ---

and it is precisely this kind of thinking that brings the hacker increasingly into conflict with society and the law.

Re:An eminently sensible policy

[gagol]

Going legal after people disclosing vulnerabilities got us where we are. If you are not opened to receive security status about your [system/software/network] get prepared to be hacked because you backed the very people willing to help you in a corner.

Re:An eminently sensible policy

[gagol]

In the beginning, people were reporting that shit. Then lawyers got involved. This is when the SHTF. Because we don't know if we are going to end in court or not, we prefer to shut up and let them bath in filth.