A Hacker Is A Good Choice For Homeland Security Advisory Council
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In what some are seeing as a surprise move, Jeff Moss the founder of Black Hat and Defcon hacker and security conferences, was named to the panel of 16 others. The panel will made up what will be known as the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
In a recent article it states that the others who were selected are:
Former CIA (Bill Webster) and FBI directors (Louis Freeh), Los Angeles County sheriff, Miami mayor, New York police commissioner, governors of Maryland and Georgia, former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, and the president of the Navajo Nation.
Moss, who is genuinely humble, said he was “fantastically honored and excited to contribute” to the HSAC and not concerned with losing any street cred among what some would call his fan base. He did concede that his new position would give him an unfair advantage in Defcon’s “Spot The Fed” contest in which people win prizes for successfully outing undercover government agents.
Choosing a hacker as one of the members of the council is a smart move. Who better to keep an eye out for other hackers than to have a hacker keep watch?
Comments welcome.
2 Comments
mhz
June 8th, 2009
at 10:50am
Well, it MIGHT be a smart move. It depends on whether you wish to encourage thousands upon thousands of young people to become hackers, in the hopes that they will eventually land a government job.
I don’t personally attend the conferences, and I do benefit from and appreciate the “security” analysis that some folks do so that products do get improved to the point where most bugs are fixed.
I also am keenly aware of the cost that goes into fixing the “experiments” that “black hat” hackers do (viruses). I realize that there are many hackers who have more lofty ideals than that, and don’t condescend to make viruses, but they spread their knowledge openly, and publish the POC’s which are the direct cause of the damage that companies suffer.
If this is a guy who has previously been publicly known as a “black hat” hacker, then the promotion sets a very bad precedent.
The whole concept of “white hat” hackers is often an attempt by previously “black hat” hackers, to become legitimate enough to make some money, without (much) risk of going to jail. Already you have young hackers experimenting with real public systems, hoping to gain the credentials they need to be recognized, aspiring to someday run a “security” (penetration testing, etc.) company.
I wonder if Moss will start to speak out and tell those young hackers that they are “messing with private property” and “causing financial damage” to companies who have to clean up after them. Probably not, since he would have no credibility. No one would listen.
I guess we’ve reached the point in the US where we openly hire mercenaries to protect us? Their past doesn’t matter, as long as they can protect us when the bullets are flying right? So all you young people, get busy, cause if you eventually get big and bad enough that no one can deal with you, we’ll probably just go ahead and turn you into our hero.
Possibly, if the rest of the black hats will see him as selling out, and working for “the man.” But there will be a cult following who believes that he is still secretly on the black hat side. It sounds like an interesting movie plot.
Ron Schenone
June 8th, 2009
at 1:49pm
Hello mhz,
Good points.