Young hackers are to rescue corporate America from cybersabotage!
In five minutes PBS delivered every cliche written in the last quarter century about the genius and talent of young hackers and how they'll change the world.
The script: We must allow offensive corporate computer security so good guy young hackers can hack attack the bad guys back. This is the prescription of the a NSA man, Stewart Baker, doing public outreach for his old agency, perhaps to distract from the news that his boss and our gov were bugging Angela Merkel. As p.r. for the greatness of hacking, computer security and young computer-savvy minds, it's the pits. And as journalism at a time when its revealed that the National Security Agency has been into rifling through everybodies stuff worldwide, it's major fail.
It's time to allow our hacker trainee army off the leash to pwn enemies as only they can!
Having been raised in modern networked America and knowing of no world but the digital, their genes are mutated and more DNA packed, their minds quicker, their digital senses honed to sharpness we cannot hope to rival. We are the past, they are the future, so onward and forward, hopefully not downward.
NSA! NSA! NSA! NSA!
Excerpted:
STEWART BAKER (ex-NSA, now through the revolving door into private sector security): They can steal your designs. They can steal your- knowhow. They can steal your customer list and your internal analysis of what the biggest problems are in your product. This is pretty scary.
RICK KARR: The bad guys are mostly working from China and former Soviet states. They're well-trained ... Security experts worry that they could cripple the banking system ... or shut down parts of the electric grid. Baker says ... American businesses need a new mindset if they're going to defend themselves.
STEWART BAKER: I'm a big believer that- the best defense is an offense. And- if we're going to have an offense- we've got to have people who are really talented drawn to that field.
RICK KARR: People like these college undergraduates, who just might be able to save America's corporations and governments from the bad-guy hackers ...
But who's going to save everyone from you?
Read the entire interview and note the journalist asking the NSA lawyer, wouldn't allowing corporate hackers to conduct offensive operations in cyberspace be illegal?
Replies Stewart Baker, "Unfortunately, it is."
Best idea and journalism subject ever: Young hackers being trained in attack response for the sake of corporate America.
So, get this: At a time when so many Americans are doing poorly because of the habits of corporate America, some in government are pushing the idea that law ought to be rewritten so that said corporate America can use computer security-trained hackers to strike offensively at their alleged tormentors in cyberspace.
Raise your hand if you think this is a good idea, if only so we can see who all the cyberspies and cybersoldiers are.
Provoking nausea is the new black.
