Operation n

UK government have been trying to revamp computer crime laws. There are a number of issues discussed at theregister. One of which relates to the provision to ban development, ownership and distribution of “hacker tools”. But what are hacker tools? An example of a tool is a password recovery tool (good), which also happens to be also called password crackers (evil). As you can see hacker tools are a media. These tools are devices that can be used for good or evil. Examples include television and newspaper and of course money. As they say “money is root of all evil”. UK government at this stage don’t seem to be differentiating both angles, which has has caused some sharp criticism in industry.

Whilst in other industries, mergers and acquisitions was popular a year or two ago. It looks like 2008 could be the year of security testing acquisition. HP recently bought out SPI dynamics and their flagship product web inspect. Meanwhile IBM bought Watchfire. It looks like the big boys want to play in the security industry.

I was watching a good movie last night called ‘Along came a spider’ starring Morgan Freeman (Alex Cross). Two things I didn’t like about the movie though. Firstly, it didn’t stay true the novel at all. In fact, the novel actually appears to be more interesting. Secondly and the point of this post, there is a scene where Alex Cross is looking for clues at an agent’s house with whom he had been working closely with. Naturally, he greeted with a login prompt but only has to guess the password. Of course, he works it out in about one minute (due to it being a 104-minute movie). But he worked out the password was relating to the agent’s dad and some poker game and the password was ‘Aces&Eights’. Yes, the characters are seen on screen as he types it and not obscured with asterisks. LAME!

Similarly in ‘Batman & Robin’, there is a scene where Alicia Silverstone (Batgirl) finds out her identity when she hacks into a computer. Surprising it takes her just three attempts to do this but the password relates to her dying uncle, if I remember correctly. That scene is particularly memorable because when she hacks in, she gets a repeated ‘Access granted’ response. No computer ever does that!

Lessons learned? Never believe a Hollywood movie! Never choose a password that anyone is going to be able guess. Seriously! So keep it random but memorable. On reflection, having a password that only someone you trust would be able to guess, doesn’t sound that bad… well in an ideal Hollywood movie, it doesn’t!

Can you think of any other movies with dodgy password cracking practices or general computer weirdness? Please comment if you do!

Please note, this post was not an excuse to mention the lovely Alicia Silverstone nor was it an attempt to make this site popular by mentioning any Alicia Silverstone sites.

;)

The irony of this data leak story is very much in the given photo..

I was just going on about how I don’t trust anybody with personal data and this bombshell about two computer discs full of personal details about people claiming child benefits going missing comes out into the open.