Security Industry Under Scrutiny #4

[ratel <ratel () mailvault com>]

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> Interesting point -  the motives of the criminal. The motives are part
of
> the key to this problem, the other part is effectiviness. The essence
is -
> for a criminal - is making crime pay, like Perry managed, and get away
with
> it, where Perry flunked.

The main problem with the rest of your post is that you're trying to
equate the psychology of hacking with the psychology of crime when a far
more appropriate analogy is the PSYCHOLOGY OF ESPIONAGE. A substantial
overlap with the common criminal to be sure, but an entirely different
kind of beast. I like to think so, anyway. Did you know that people
prone to espionage overwhelmingly share an unusual combination of three
personality disorders: narcissistic, antisocial and paranoid.
Narcissistic, antisocial and paranoid? Imagine that! Sound like anybody
you know in the security business, hmmm? heh. 

There's a huge body of literature out there on this you can find on your
own, if it interests you, knock yourself out: you might be surprised at
what you come up with. Here's a start--a lot of great information which
also has the added benefit of being unintentionally funny as hell...
http://www.dss.mil/nf/adr/. As far as I'm concerned, the only difference
between sophisticated hackers and high-impact spies is a matter of the
environment they find themselves in. Likewise, script kiddie carders
correspond to dumb grunts caught selling secrets to make a fast buck.
Etc. etc. draw your own parallels. 

Is it any coincidence that that Robert Hanssen was planning on taking a
job in the computer security industry? 

I think not.   

Ratel.
    

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