[608] in Intrusion Detection Systems
[NOISE] Re[2]: FLAME
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (J.R.Valverde (jr))
Tue Feb 20 10:53:50 1996
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 15:41:18 +0100 (WET)
From: "J.R.Valverde (jr)" <JRVALVERDE@Samba.cnb.uam.es>
To: ids@uow.edu.au
Reply-To: ids@uow.edu.au
Note to the moderator: I didn't intend to add to this thread any more,
but recent facts as explained prompted me to post this. Ihope it is,
at the least, entertaining and illustrative.
>> Nelson Mandella is the elected leader of a nation. In the past he was
>> imprisoned as a criminal, for activities that the prevailing fashion
>> labelled terrorist and subversive.
>
>I do not believe that there is any evidence that he carried on these
>activities for profit or even entertainment.
>
>There are hackers who engage in their activities for political purposes,
>no doubt, or for other forms of real protest. Whether or not the individual
>who was responsible for this thread falls into this category isn't something
>I care to speculate publicly about... but in my opinion any such comparison
>between modern hackers and Nelson Mandella is disingenuous at best.
>
Could we get rid of all this nonsensical intolerance?
Just for the record: yesterday a Cathedratic on Law was killed here by
a terrorist. There was an upsurge of indignation... More the same since
the terrorist group has web pages on the net where they make disinformation.
Now, you might like to know that in this country a blue ribbon has
been for a long time the symbol against violence often used to protest
against this same terrorist group.
Yesterday evening all of a sudden the pages of the terrorist group appeared
spread all over with a blue-ribbon background which -of course- made the
joy of most people around here for its anti-violence and anti-terrorism
meaning.
It seems that some hacker(s) entered into the web server of the ISP, and
selectively changed the pages of the terrorist group into an anti-terrorism
symbol without affecting any unrelated page of the ISP's web server.
But obviously those hackers didn't intend any political meaning nor were
stating a position for peace and freedom in a non-violent way. Did they?
Am I being too disingenuous?
So the point is: people hacks for a variety of reasons: some are malicious,
and some terrorists, and some freedom-fighters, and some are spies, and
yet others do it for money and so on...
Therefore, remember: hackers are persons like you and me, and hence they
act for as many different motives as you, me, your employer or anyone
else. So, don't condemn anyone in advance: you may be in different sides
of the router, but not neccessarily have different motivations. Maybe
you should question with equal critic your and your employer's interests.
Sorry for the noise.
jr
