LAS VEGAS – “…A mix of teenagers to thirty-somethings, the hackers at the Defcon gathering here breathed second-hand cigarette smoke and quaffed Red Bull energy drink by the liter, their hearts beating to a techno rave track. They’re a dangerous bunch, too: A hacker from the research arm of a rival company broke into the Weiss Labs server and found a flaw, causing the computer to eat up its own memory, finally crashing the system…”
“…This incarnation of capture the flag, the brainchild of a Seattle group of high-minded security geeks known as the GhettoHackers, pits rival hacking groups against each other in a game of corporate espionage. Each group has to maintain its own server while attempting to crash or take control of other teams’ servers…”
The final results should be available at the Defcon.org site on Monday, and the Shmoo Group of hackers intends soon to publish the network sniffer logs, detailing all the attacks. Click here to read the full CNET News.com story.
SEATTLE – “…At a typical Wells Fargo branch here, employees and customers do business each day oblivious to a beehive of activity in the basement. There, five blue-walled rooms serve as makeshift classrooms for other tenants in the building who are light years from the world of banking: an organization of some of the most talented computer hackers in the country.
“As menacing as this juxtaposition might seem, the group insists that its work is harmless and, in fact, is dedicated to doing good. The founders of GhettoHackers, as the group is called, say its 30-odd members teach others how to crack security only to find flaws so that defenses can be hardened…”
Click here to read the full ZDNet News story.
