Security industry's hacker-pimping slammed

Security industry's hacker-pimping slammed
Thomas C. Greene, The Register 2002-07-15

I spent three days at H2K2 hoping someone would say something worth mentioning in The Register. Finally, on Sunday, a couple of speakers did just that (on which more tomorrow). Best of all was Gweeds' savage synopsis of a thing which world + dog has no doubt long entertained as a vague suspicion, namely the way hackers pimp themselves in hopes of getting hired at great expense by security companies, and the way conferences provide fertile soil for the illusory threat exaggeration on which the security industry feeds.

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Security industry's hacker-pimping slammed - slightly biased news item?! 2002-07-16
Anonymous

I feel that this news item is very biased. Thomas seems completely unwilling to see the other side of the coin. Sure, some hackers are all about the liberation of data and information that should be public in the first place; but many more are simply destructive, or hack into systems for their own ends (e.g. to display a political statement on a government website - IMO the same as spraying graffiti on a wall, or to hijack a site to use as a warez repository).

"The rush to publish and take credit for discovering and patching a new exploit hobbles the positive efforts of blackhats with a social conscience (though admittedly no one knows how big a category that is)."

True, but it also hampers the efforts of destructive hackers. What are you saying exactly? That nobody who discovers a security hole should do anything about this? Get real.

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