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Why So Many Top Hackers Come From Russia (krebsonsecurity.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader tsu doh nimh writes:
Brian Krebs has an interesting piece this week on one reason that so many talented hackers (malicious and benign) seem to come from Russia and the former Soviet States: It's the education, stupid. Krebs's report doesn't look at the socioeconomic reasons, but instead compares how the U.S. and Russia educate students from K-12 in subjects which lend themselves to a mastery in coding and computers -- most notably computer science. The story shows that the Russians have for the past 30 years been teaching kids about computer science and then testing them on it starting in elementary school and through high school. The piece also looks at how kids in the U.S. vs. Russia are tested on what they are supposed to have learned.
Fossbytes also reports that Russia claimed the top spot in this year's Computer Programming Olympics -- their fourth win in six years -- adding that "the top 9 positions out of 14 were occupied by Russian or Chinese schools." The only two U.S. schools in the top 20 were the University of Central Florida (#13) and MIT (#20).
Fossbytes also reports that Russia claimed the top spot in this year's Computer Programming Olympics -- their fourth win in six years -- adding that "the top 9 positions out of 14 were occupied by Russian or Chinese schools." The only two U.S. schools in the top 20 were the University of Central Florida (#13) and MIT (#20).
If only we had decent hackers in the US. Then maybe they could release the Russian hooker piss-tapes to Wikileaks. I love watersports.
I've been watching a lot of Russian language media lately, because I have been trying to restore my language skills. Hackers in Russian movies are much more realistic than in American ones.
One gets asked whether he can get in a secure system? He does not boast, he answers "I will certainly try."
He does not mash the keyboard while he is getting a blowjob, he deploys an arsenal from 'Flashka' or from a alphabetical soup URL.
He examining an air-gapped system, looking for a way to get at the hardware, and mumbling about which patches seems not to have been applies.
He gets asked to get some video records? He asks "Do I have an hour and a half"?
Etc... And that is from police shows, where the staff hackers are not necessarily named characters, and definitely not the focus of the series.
This tells me that that the population at large has some idea about IT... you would not make a movie in the US where the driver will shift three times while driving backwards, would you? I mean... Uh, you get the point.
No good deed goes unpunished...
In the US, there is an extreme risk-averse culture. Not risk-averse as in "start a company and it might fail" but as in "don't even think about trying to beat the system, someone might sue you for it". So the very thing that causes many of the most succesfull companies to be founded in the US is actively suppressed when it comes to hacking skills.
Education has value. The schools teach. People want to learn.
Exams are passed on merit to get into a really great university.
So the math skills are created.
Also consider a long history of maths and science. Computer access and later faster network access.
Other nations tried to do the same over the years. What did Russia get right and so many other nations totally fail at?
The UK had its BBC Micro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for education and a lot of very poor people all around the UK got so see and use a computer.
Given the funding and early access to computers the UK should have been a very advanced computer nation?
If it was only about hardware the early attempts at computer education would have allowed the UK to advance.
The USA educated generations in science after the 1950's with more funding. That provided a good selection of very good US teachers for the next generations.
The USA filled some of its schools with new computer labs, books, networks, educational software, robot kits and teachers who could teach. A lot of equipment and books got offered to different schools all over the USA.
Some parts of the USA got vast amounts of new funding for very poor students, per student. Did any of it help or change results? Not as much as expected per generation per student when tested given all the new spending.
If it was only about computer access, the best teachers and funding the USA on average would be very advanced given the amount of funding per student in some US states and cities..
What was the difference?
Passing exams, staying with real merit advancement. In Russia getting good grades and knowing things is seen as a good thing.
A culture of math, science, art, languages, music, sport, faith and education is encouraged and supported.
A pride in culture, art, engineering, maths, Russia is passed to each generation who want to learn and study.
For people in the USA trying to get a wide picture of history try Gymnasium (school) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Not much on Russia but it shows a different way of approaching education that has shaped different nations.
On Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The key is the exams and the need to pass on merit. The USA and UK selected very different educational systems over the last decades and per student funding.
The results of such very different failed methods show decades later over entire nations.
Too much social promotion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... in some nations and not enough low cost passing tests only on merit.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Are you talking about Sergey Brin, half of the duo who started Google, or how Russian scientists were involved in the mathematics behind eigenvalues, which is the underlying fundament for Google's pagerank algorithms?
In much of the West, crime doesn't pay, or at least pay well. Your average street thug probably makes less than minimum wage. Sure, there are a few that make a lot of money, but it's like trying to make a money as a rock band. Only the 0.1% make a middle-class income, and only the 0.001% make the money you see in movies. Plus, you're likely to wind up dead or in jail.
Consequently, for the most part, only the badly educated or stupid become criminals. There's the odd smart criminal, but having a legit job (if that's available) is simply superior in every way.
And then you have the former Soviet Union, with a ton of really smart, very well-educated, very talented engineers, with virtually no decent job prospects at all, but still fairly good virtual contact with the West.
And suddenly, given a lack of options, you have smart criminals.
And that is a recipe for total disaster.
As a matter of survival of the Western world, we need to open immigration from Russia so that these smart, talented engineers can find decent jobs that benefit us before they find ill-paying jobs that cost us terribly.
(Many of my most capable co-workers have been Russians who were able to leave, and man, we their talent working for us, rather than against us, for both our sakes.)
I am a product of post-soviet education of past 20-30 years, from a reasonably large city, and I can tell you that my generation (from which a lot of those hackers seem to come) was not "taught" any computer science, or tested on it, not on highschool, and certainly not in elementary school. Whatever my friends and I have learned was from playing with things on our own. The educational system, however, did provide us with very solid math foundation, geared towards multi-step problem solving, logic, and at least some critical thinking. In my opinion, the abundance of russian hackers is due two a combination of lack of consequences and lack of other as-lucrative economic opportunities. In US, one could easily end up in a world of legal trouble for experimenting with hacking. In post-soviet space, the worst that can happen is one would have to share profits with some thugs (from the government or otherwise).