[PLUG] Question on Zoombombin

[Ben Koenig]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 1:28 PM Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, 9 Apr 2020, Mike C. wrote:
>
> > I wish there was a better term for people who commit malicious acts of
> > computing than hacker.
> >
> > I still associate "hacker" and "hacking" with non-malicious.
>
> +1 I refer to them as 'crackers', regardless of geographic origin.
>
>
sadly, that will never fly since 'cracker' already has a racist
connotation. But we already know what to call them, don't we?

There are 2 groups of malicous hackers. The first group is relatively
harmless, since they are doing it for the prestige. Typically younger
people who find a few fun tricks and run around on a vandalism spree. They
usually get caught and punished accordingly. A number of the big "hackers"
from the 90s are now adults leading normal lives. Posting pornographic
images in someone else's meeting is just standard issue internet trolling.

The second group is state-sponsored, and we call them "spies". Because
that's what they are, agents of a government who are paid to steal state
secrets from other countries. Hacking is just one of many techniques a spy
can use to obtain information. Instead of trying to give them a new name,
we just need to update our understand of the technology to properly
identify these individuals as what they are. If someone were truly
dangerous, they wouldn't announce their presence to the entire zoom
meeting. they would sit there quietly, pretending to be a legitimate member
of the meeting, while recording everything they see and do. Wrap up the
data in a neat little digestible package and send it straight to your
russian/chinese/united states/<insert country here> intelligence agency.
Because that's what a good SPY would do.

Quiet, Polite, Respectful, and significantly more Dangerous than your
average naked lady picture.






> Rich
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