Figthing hackers, is it possible? is it necessary? (Part 2)

Today, we will think about "Is it possible to stop a hacker?"

(Please, today we will think a "hacker" as a computer expert, that means ethical, unethical, students, vandals, thieves...)

Yeah, it is.

Is it possible to stop a team of ten hackers?

Yes, I think it possible.

Is it possible to stop a team of one hundred hackers?

I think so. It is not easy at all, but it is possible.

Finally, is it possible to stop hacker nets as the Anonymous one?

It is not possible at all, 100%, sure, NOT POSSIBLE.

By the way, many people will think: "why?"

Many answers for that question:

1) Because it is not possible to cut off the head of a "enemy" without head

2) Because if the police arrests two hackers, twenty new ones will raise.

3) Because everybody is part of Anonymous, LulzSec... all and none; everybody is welcome. Could be your neighbor, your son, your aunt, your cousin...

4) Because Anonymous has control about the most powerful weapon in the world, a big big big big big big bot-net

Btw (again), many people would ask "what the hell is a bot-net?"

First, I assume that it is not necessary to explain what is a "net", right?

What is a "bot"?

Have you ever played "Counter Strike"??  :)  A bot is a entity without brain, this means something controlled remotelly or auto-controlled.

There is a huge amounts of computer infected with a trojan horse, rootkits, virus...

Those infected computers are working normal at this moment, that means, the owner of this computer have no idea that his/her PC is already infected.

The bot-net is asleep now.

In the past, most of hacker attacks to governments had done by one hacker-one PC way, using DoS attacks to web servers.

What can happen in a near future?

A massive attack in a one hacker-one thousand pcs way.

I would like to tell to police which is the easy way "to stop" hackers:

To arrest corrupt politicians, to arrest company owners or manager who does unethical actions.

I've never be attacked by anonymous or other groups like this.

why? I've never provoked them.

That's easy. :)

"We are legion"
Next Post: "The weakest node in a system"

Figthing hackers, is it possible? is it necessary? (Part 1)

Is it really necessary to try to fight or to try to stop a hacker?

Absolutely NOT.

A real hacker will never break into your system without a serious reason, most of hackers are computer experts with a deep knowledge and huge expertise, they have more important things to do to break into your PC.

By the way, should most people (who have a personal computer at home) be afraid by hackers?

Again, absolutely not. You should be worried only about thieves or vandals, same as the life out-of-computers.

There are lots of internet thieves or vandals, most of them are called themselves hackers, but they are not! They are thieves and police should fight them.

Should companies be worried by hackers? Once more, absolutely not!

If that company does its work in a ethical manner and correctly, this company should not be afraid by hackers at all.

That company should be protected against hackers when they abuses their position to earn more money than they should/can. They should be afraid when they are stealing data or money from their users or customers.

In this case the company should be worried about hackers, and about the police forces too! Because they've been under unethical and/or illegal actions!

Are hackers a serious threat? If you don't provoke them, they will not attack to you.

Hackers have more important things to do that attack your personal computer where you stored your beach pics that took last summer :)

It's as easy as this.

"We are legion"

[Last - part 2] -> Is it possible to stop a hacker team?


"We are legion"
Next Post: "Figthing hackers, is it possible? is it necessary? (Part 2)"

Anonymous vs Police?

First, we'll start with some definitions to view differences between a hacker and a vandal.

A vandal (same as life out-computers) is a person who hurts or damages without a reason. He/She has no sense of honour or ethic. Just breaking things for his/her own enjoy.

There are thieves too (same as life out-computers) who breaks into systems to steal money or other things.

Last of all, there are hackers as a group: hackers, crackers, samurai, phreakers... each group has different objectives to study and/or work.

Today we will not study differences between them, we only try to view differences between a vandal (called "lammers" by most hackers) or thief and a hacker.

There is a only one reason to be a vandal, breaking things to enjoy doing it.

Hackers have lots of reasons to do all they do:

- Some of them works to find security holes in computer companies and report them to the company in order to fix that hole. (Most of them are working for this company, they are called "whitehat hackers")

- Others use their knowledge to find security holes and exploit them against a company to protest against any reason related to this company (they are "blackhat hackers")

- Others use their expertise to find those security holes in order to uncover tracks or evidences in order to help to police to do their work.

- Others only are trying to improve their knowledge, finding security holes on random web sites or company servers, only to study WITHOUT doing any bad action (they are "wannabes").

I would really want to have the chance to explain that to police in all countries all over the world, due all security forces in the world are confusing hackers with vandals.



We must remember the SGAE judicial case, some hackers uncovered many evidences from SGAE and sent it to spanish security forces.

One of my most favourite websites in the www is "The Hacker News", their motto is "Truth is the most powerful weapon against injustice"

I remember another one from the Linux BackTrack distribution (the one that I'm using right now) "The quieter you become the more able you will able to hear"

I think this two mottos could describe differences between hackers and lammers/vandals.

.
"We are legion"
Next Post: "Figthing hackers, is it possible? is it necessary? (Part 1)"

The lazy guy

The lazy guy and the engineers

When I started to work, some time ago, there was a guy who was already working there, just a year before me.

Then, my working team was formed by seven or eight people, they all was people that studied the same career as me.

All of them but one was engineer. Early working was great, we were happy at work.

Just a few months after, when I was talking with him who wasn't an engineer, he told "I'm very happy because I've the same job as an engineer without the need of studying. I think studying is not important, all of you've been wasting your time"

This was an issue that turned me so angry but I finally thought that he was not serious and he has no intention to hurt us. I never believed how much I had mistaken.

During this while our teamwork was growing and growing, a few months after I started to work six or seven people more increased our team. All of them were engineers too but this one, this one who was happy to not to be an engineer.

I can't remember when, but I remember I told this conversation to a new component of our team, he couldn't belive that, but when the time was passing some of my mates had similar conversations with this guy.

Bi-yearly our company gives a price to the hardest worker people in the company, to the three to five most able to do his/her work.

Our team has become important in our company, not for be the most pretty, not to be hard workers, just to be one of the teams that earns more money.

Due to that, the site manager selected our team to win the price, that was great! one of us will be rewarded to all the work we do all days, great!

From my view, this changed the course of our working trajectories. Our manager selected the "lazy man" to win the price, that was really frustrating.

the guy who told us that we wasted our time in university?
the guy who is the laziest one?
the guy who never done his work at time?
the guy who always accomplish to "balance/share" his work to another team mate?

Yeah, that really happened.

Today, the engineers in our company are still waiting for the end of the story because all stories has a happy ending.

We're waiting the ours one

Next Post: "Anonymous vs Police?"

The story of the baker and the computer engineer

Today I'm back to tell you a story, the story of the baker and the computer engineer.

Some time ago there was two friends, one of them works as baker and the second one went to the university and completed a carreer, computer engineer.

During this time,  the baker was working some years and he earned some money and every friday and saturday night he went out to the disco and pubs

In this same years, the second friend (the one who is engineer today) had to study very much but this is a work which didn't return him any money, he couldn't go out due to he had no free time neither money.

He had to leave his family and go to other city, bigger than his. He knew new people and fight very hard to get what he wanted.

Those years became harder and harder due to the friend who went to university couldn't see inmediate benefits.

Between this years, there was a weekend when they met. They were talking one or two hours about their histories.

The baker friend asked the another one to go home and try to fix his computer. The second friend went thinking to help his friend, he tried and he fixed that computer, he spent about three or four hours on that fixing.

The next day, at morning the friend who was studying went to the bakery's friend, he requested two pieces of bread, he really thought his friend will invite him due to the work of the previous day but his friend said "this costs 3€, please".

The student friend get so angry and told: "Do you really want to be paid? Don't you remember the work done yesterday"

And the baker friend replied: "Oh! really! I want to be paid, the work you done yesterday had no cost for you!"

The student friend paid and had never talked again to his old friend never.

Eigth years after,  the student has become a computer engineer, he lives in a rented house but has enough money to go to other countries, to travel around his own country, he has free time to go out with his girlfriend...

Eigth years after, the baker friend is still a baker and works very much to earn his money, day and night.



That story is based in my own experience. I'm not the baker friend.
Right now I'm on the roof of my house with my PC and a very cool beer, my old friend should be working, I think.




Next Post: "The lazy guy"

Differences between to work with computers and to be a informatic professional

Lots of times we heard: "My brother/sister/cousin... is a computer expert, he/she works in a big company"
Most times, he/she will break down our PC and then a real computer expert is needed (and very well paid).

In the last twenty years many people decided to become computer technician by reading a few magazines or manuals, most of this people today is between fourty and fifty years old and they think they are the most expert guy in their company.
More over, most of them has not completed any universitary career, even most of them never tried to start those studies.

Nowadays, we have two generations of "technicians": the older one who thinks they are the most expert in the company and the newest one, where most of them are computer engineers trying to adquire the work that they should own.

From my own, the first technicians has improved their jobs and they are now supervisors and managers of the new technicians. Some of this managers feels that their jobs are threatened by new technicians, who have more powerful updated knowledge; they feel can loss their jobs and need to fight this new technicians.

From my own experience, in the new generation of technicians there is high qualified smart people and others who are not smarter and qualified than other, that's very usual.
I saw many times how this medium-qualified engineers promotes their jobs and get major opportunities due to their manager feels lower danger to theirs jobs instead to promote a great engineer, due to this engineer implies a threat for their job status.

Just some months ago, my manager told us "You must do your jobs well or very well, but not excellent!, this is the way to improve in a company"

I hope you are not in this case because if you are a excellent engineer, you won't promote, due to "you are a threat" to your manager.

Nowadays, that's the difference between to be a computer worker or to be computer proffessional.


Next Post: "The story of the baker and the computer engineer"

Digital Illiterates

In the last days, we've read on newspapers, twitter, TV... how police and other security forces tried to stop some "hacker groups" and how they can't (from my view).

Nowadays, when we see somebody who didn't know write or read we think (so surprised) "I can't believe that there is still any people who cannot read and write without problem, shouldn't be any illiterate people in the world, we have to fight against this problem". But we must remember "El Quijote", novel where there is a guy who reads too much and people thought about him that he is crazy.

In the last ten years, a guy who takes so long with his/her computer was seen as a freak or an unsocial person even a crazy guy (remembers "El Quijote", right?)

I think those people is now carrying out the danger of become digital-illiterate. Those people could work as police and others security groups and they are trying to stop Anonymous, LulzSec and others like them.

Even more, some of them told "I challenge those hackers to attack again our company".  



I think: really? are you serious? Are you challenging people who can shutdown your PC on this moment? people who turn off all lights around your neighborhood? people who can access your personal data from the Play Station network? are you really challenging?

Now, we are starting the century when just a child sited on a little chair can attack your bank account and take out lots of dollars or euros  :)

Please, try to not to become a digital-illiterate...

Next post: "Differences between to work with computers and to be a informatic professional"

Breaking news

Hi there,

I've created my new blog, this will be my online public diary but this doesn't mean will be daily :)


I hope you feel identified by my stories.
My first post will be "Digital illiterates".

Follow me at @fvallejoluna
Next post: "Digital Illiterates"