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Date:      Sun, 10 Mar 2002 11:15:20 -0800
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Paul Robinson <paul@iconoplex.co.uk>
Cc:        Mike Meyer <mwm-dated-1016143406.b4e49c@mired.org>, Mike Meyer <mwm-dated-1016137017.93980d@mired.org>, "Nickolay A.Kritsky" <nkritsky@internethelp.ru>, Peter Leftwich <Hostmaster@Video2Video.Com>, Miguel Mendez <flynn@energyhq.homeip.net>, Cliff Sarginson <csfbsd@raggedclown.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: http://users.uk.freebsd.org/~juha/
Message-ID:  <3C8BB0C8.9A6D8493@mindspring.com>
References:  <3C86D7D6.C11D7E@mindspring.com> <15494.58407.33613.314390@guru.mired.org> <8457986570.20020307135407@internethelp.ru> <15495.57385.993281.469551@guru.mired.org> <20020308113108.G32897@iconoplex.co.uk> <15497.12783.643757.175742@guru.mired.org> <20020309144158.K32897@iconoplex.co.uk> <15498.28088.976841.7441@guru.mired.org> <3C8A75A1.C567BB02@mindspring.com> <15498.34475.395754.932338@guru.mired.org> <20020310164125.P32897@iconoplex.co.uk>

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Paul Robinson wrote:
> And for anybody out there thinking about starting a career in hacking, it IS
> big and it IS clever but just be aware that you ARE going to go to prison
> unless you're lucky. Or join the CIA or something. :-)

From personal experience, I can tell you that federal
agencies seem to really not care about cyberwarfare
capabilities, or even that other people have them, when
the agencies don't seem to.

If you look at the prerequisites for employment on the FBI
web site, you will see that they are pretty far from what
someone competent at cracking/hacking would have on their
C.V. already.

I ran into an incident a while back, and it took me weeks
to find "the right people" to contact; even then, once they
were contacted, they were largely indifferent to the threat.

I guess it takes someone who has the ability to be able to
say "If *I* could abuse this this way, then someone else
could" to be alarmed at a capability.

It was incredibly tempting to shove their face in it by
blowing the information to the news media.

You would think that after the immediately pre-September
11th stock market manipulations via Germany, the profits of
which most probably went to fund additional terrorism, it
would be a different story.

Several years ago, I helped out with source tracking for
another incident; it turned out "the right people" there were
the Secret Service (bizarre; it was an international pump and
dump fraud situation involving a SPAMmer with their own telephone
exchange on the Isle of Man; who'd have thought the Secret
Service were the people to call?!?  I'd have been more likely
to call Dr. Peter Venkman, myself...).

I think the enforcement situation is still highly disorganized
and likely to stay that way for quite a while, unfortunately
(over half a billion in online credit card fraud last year;
that would fund a lot of things I'd rather not think about,
if it were in any way an organized effort).

-- Terry

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