Racketeering in the Computer Security Industry,
continued...
Are these people a serious threat? The Cult of the Dead Cow
people act like, well, bozos. However, the operative work here
is “act.” Let’s see what they have to gain from
inciting computer crime, and providing the tools to accomplish
it.
Before Def Con, Dildog and company had offered to sell an
exclusive advance copy of BO2K to several computer security companies.
Sources say they asked for "$5 million and a monster truck."
They finally sold it for an undisclosed sum to Network Flight
Recorder, Inc. (http://www.nfr.net)
People who had bought Network Flight Recorder were the first
ones prepared to ward off BO2K.
A year later, the creators of Back Orifice landed another
deal.
Hackers help form security company
By Ted Brides
Associated Press, August 16, 2000
Who ya gonna call?
Hackers!
Some of the Internet's most adept online snoops are hoping
big business soon will be chanting that "Ghosbusters"-like
refrain. These hackers have formed a company to advise the world's
largest banks and hospitals on how to keep their data safe from
cyber-intruders.
Members of the Boston-based L0pht Heavy Industries, who
once boasted to the Senate that any one of them could cripple
the Internet in the United States within 30 minutes, announced
last week the creation of their consulting company, @Stake. They
say they have more than $10 million in funding from venture capitalists….
The new vice president of research and development…
will continue to use only his online handle, "Mudge"….
L0pht (pronounced "loft"… will disband as an organization.
All its members -- with such colorful monikers as… "Dildog,"…
will join the new company, based in Cambridge, Mass.
Dildog, Mudge and their gang mates are now wealthy entrepreneurs.
Mudge, in particular,
…is, according to some, the king of the hackers, and
a man who's managed to parlay that expertise into big bucks from
the corporate world….
Under Mudge's arm was an extremely attractive young lady
who was dressed in retro-crunchy chic. Searching around for a
conversation starter, I asked: “Why did you become a hacker?”
He… blew a smoke ring and glanced at the girl. “I got
into it because of the chicks, man.” The chick smiled. In
case you're wondering, I'm not making this up. – “King
of the hackers,” Upside New England, December 21,
2000, by Geoffrey James, http://www.upside.com/Opinion/3a4126761.html
"When in history… has it happened that victims routinely
go to their enemy camp to hire their enemies into their own fortresses?"
-- Donn Parker, author, Fighting Computer Crime (John Wiley &
Sons, 1998).
Donn Parker was writing about the practice of hiring criminal
hackers to work for companies that promise to defend computers.
Since then, the problem has grown. @Stake is the most blatant,
but hardly the only company owned by people who incite computer
crime. Today, breaking into home computers is big business. This
problem just might pay a visit to your home computer some day.
Want help keeping the creeps out of your computer? Click
here for information and download links for free home firewalls!
