Globe and Mail: We’ve got a lot to learn from hackers

“When you think about the Internet and e-commerce security, you
may have an image of a computer geek, hacking away in isolation,
breaking into corporate sites through sheer brilliance.

“A tour of some of the more public… sites — Rootshell
(http://www.rootshell.com), Lopht (http://www.lopht.com) and
Fyodor’s Playhouse (http://www.insecure.org) — reveals but a small
part of this hacking world.

“While deeply technical, each of these sites is full of reports
on the latest security problems… Scan them and you’ll quickly
realize that huge numbers of new problems are found each
week…”

“In exploring these sites, keep in mind that there are two
types of people in the community. Sites such as those above
are built by true “hackers,” people who like to explore the
limits of computer systems merely for the joy of doing
so.”

“But on the darker side of the Internet, you can find
more impressive (and scary) information resources built by
“crackers,” those who find and exchange such information with
the specific intent of doing something wrong.”

Complete story.