Comments on: Checking the ingredients of your new jump drive

By: webs05

webs05 — Mon, 07 May 2007 03:00:41 +0000

There was no comparison made. I was simply making the statement up above that a “War on Hackers” would be better money spent then a “War on Drugs”. Even though both are a complete waste of money.

Ed’s right, though; “drugs” do kill thousands of people every year. Wierd thing is, they’re prescribed by doctors.

Exactly the point I was somewhat getting at with my question.

By: george.w

george.w — Sun, 06 May 2007 13:40:19 +0000

How many people die from marijuana?

I’m not sure the whole “war on drugs” comparison is apt. Drugs are a substance; hackers are a group of people. Within the set of all hackers are subsets - some out to do real damage, some out to scam lots of money, and some who are trying to thwart the first two by a prompting an industry deep in denial to do something about its fly hanging open. The reaction to go after all of them throws out the ones who, while irritating, are beneficial.

Come to think of it, long as we’re mis-comparing hacking and medicine, black-hat hackers are like pathogens. White-hat hackers are like a vaccine and the IT industry is like the antibodies that sometimes need to be stimulated by that vaccine.

OK, this is getting just silly. ;-P

Ed’s right, though; “drugs” do kill thousands of people every year. Wierd thing is, they’re prescribed by doctors.

By: webs05

webs05 — Sun, 06 May 2007 04:41:58 +0000

How many people die from Marijuana?

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 05 May 2007 15:08:52 +0000

An all-out “war on [white hat] hackers” is simply a ridiculus idea. That would be like a “war on the FD&C”. The FD&C warns us when our food is contaminated. The hackers warn us when Macrosloth Windoze has a gaping security hole (or, usually, hundreds ).

Has no one ever heard the saying “don’t shoot the messenger?”?

And to consider a “war on hackers” a more worthy cause than a “war on drugs” discredits you entirely. Drugs are responsible for thousands of deaths every year. How many people have died because someone planted a virus on their computer? In case you don’t know, the answer is: none.

By: george.w

george.w — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:19:48 +0000

Emotionally I totally agree with serious consequences for all hackers including “white hat”, but rationally I have to recognize in the long run that leaves us more vulnerable. Because only concerted attempts to pick a lock will reveal its flaws, and there will always be people out to do real damage, who do not care what happens to them. The hacking equivalent of suicide bombers - actual criminals and terrorists.

The white-hats (whose hats are a bit tarnished in my view) at least alert us to avoid U3 technology. Some systems really are harder to hack than others. For instance I have heard FreeBSD is regarded as extremely difficult to hack even by hackers, so that is useful to know when building a secure system. This is the reason I read 2600.

Unfortunately no simple solution to this problem.

By: webs05

webs05 — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:05:11 +0000

Attacking or going after hackers is comparable to a WAR ON DRUGS or a WAR ON TERROR. Every time you nab one of the offenders, a new one pops up. There is no end to the madness.

And the other problem is going after hackers in other countries, because most of the hacking is probably taking place outside of the US where the hacker feels safer.

But I guess I would rather see my tax dollars go to a War on Hackers than a War on Drugs… I’m with ya!

By: james old guy

james old guy — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:56:33 +0000

The real problem is hackers, we keep trying to defend our systems instead of attacking the hackers. Hacking is breaking and entering, plain and simple and add in theft or grand larceny to boot. No one will ever create a system that his hack proof, so maybe it is time to get tough on hackers and their supporters. I can see a time where hacking will if it hasn’t already will cause death. This so called hacking for the greater good is a total lie, and just an excuse for justifing criminal activity.

By: webs05

webs05 — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:04:20 +0000

I wish I knew how you got that functionality, because I haven’t been able to get a single one to open up on more than one different system without being an administrator. I think it’s because only the user that first access the drive has access to it. So it you try using it on a different user acocunt, it doesn’t work.

But here at the college we have had trouble with a Sandisk and a Geek Squad USB drive.

By: Les

Les — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:15:42 +0000

I’ve been using a U3 drive for quite some time now without any issues of any kind. I mainly used it to take my browser settings to work at Ford. Ford doesn’t allow users to install software on client machines yet my U3 drive worked just fine every time I plugged it in. Which makes sense because the U3 doesn’t install any applications in the background, not even the launcher that shows up in the systray.

Since leaving Ford I’m wiped the drive of the U3 stuff simply because I have no real use for it, but I never had a problem with it and haven’t heard of any hackers successfully hacking PCs via a U3 device.

By: webs05

webs05 — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:25:59 +0000

I will let you know when I got the article done, that way if you want to link to it you can…