The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security

preface

Some hackers destroy people's files or entire hard drives; they're called crackers or vandals. Some novice hackers don't bother learning the technology, but simply download hacker tools to break into computer systems; they're called script kiddies. More experienced hackers with programming skills develop hacker programs and post them to the Web and to bulletin board systems. And then there are individuals who have no interest in the technology, but use the computer merely as a tool to aid them in stealing money, goods, or services.

Despite the media-created myth of Kevin Mitnick, I am not a malicious hacker.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

STARTING OUT

My path was probably set early in life. I was a happy-go-lucky kid, but bored. After my father split when I was three, my mother worked as a waitress to support us. To see me then—an only child being raised by a mother who put in long, harried days on a sometimes-erratic schedule—would have been to see a kid on his own almost all his waking hours. I was my own babysitter.

Growing up in a San Fernando Valley community gave me the whole of Los Angeles to explore, and by the age of twelve I had discovered a way to travel free throughout the whole greater L.A. area. I realized one day while riding the bus that the security of the bus transfer I had purchased relied on the unusual pattern of the paper-punch that the drivers used to mark day, time, and route on the transfer slips. A friendly driver, answering my carefully planted question, ...