My take on Hacking

So, ummm, seriously. Hacking, in and of itself, is NOT a bad thing. The smartest people in history have been hackers, in one way or another. It's an operation of brain function. Creativity. Intelligence. Breaking boundaries. Testing truths. Discovering truths.

I know we've all heard it hundreds, if not thousands, of times now. "Hackers" broke into this... or brought down that. Okay, let's be clear about this. "BAD people broke into this... or brought that down." e.g. The gun doesn't kill people, people kill people.

Knowledge is power. Despite your personal motivation, as a hacker you strive to learn more; to understand more. It's your personal motivations and ethics that define your actions, not your knowledge. As a mentor, it's my job it reinforce the need for ethics as you move through your education, but at no time can I actually enforce that. You're on your own to make the right decisions.

Certified Ethical Hacker, aka CEH: Since we're on the topic, I'd like to toss out to the world that there is absolutely no way you can certify another individual's ethics. You can make certain assumptions based on years of observation and experience with that individual, but you can not, within the period of 1-2 weeks certify anyone as ethical. I'm not going to get into a debate about whether the content of the course/training of the CEH is of any value; that's not what this is about. But the simple use of "Certified Ethical Hacker" reeks entirely too much of a used car saleman-type marketing ploy to get people to plop down their hard earned money for a certification that is entirely implausible.