The traditional approach to fight hacking is to ban it. In Barcelona
however, the war against the hackers has taken a new turn.
Local teenagers are offered courses in computer security
Barcelona is home to an innovative new project designed to combat
hacking.
The Hacker High School is at the University of La Salle, in the same
department that churns out some of the best of Barcelona's designers.
The scheme is not the "devil's workshop" it might sound but, say its
organisers, aims to tackle a modern-day taboo.
Likening current attitudes to hacking to old repressed notions of
sex, they say many are doing it, but few are talking about it.
Pete Herzog, managing director of the organisation that set it up,
says: "If you go back 50 years ago what was sex education? Sex
education was 'sex is out there, don't do it, you'll get diseases'.
"We have the same situation now. We can't really tell you what
hacking is.
"You'll get worms in your e-mail box all the time. Somebody will
probably put Trojans on your computer. Something will happen.
"You'll see it, but everyone who is doing this is doing it illegally,
they're bad. We can't define it, but if you do it you'll go to jail."
Digital self-defence
The programme was set up by the Institute for Security and Open
Methodologies (ISECOM), a non-profit computer security outfit that
wants to make students streetwise to the hostile neighbourhood the
internet can often be.
Children from local high schools get a sort of digital self-defence
class, giving teens the moves to tackle fraud, identity theft and
attacks on their systems.
Mr Herzog says: "We are taking kids who will see this kind of illegal
activity, and showing them how it is done, what's happening.
"This is so they can understand the technical concept, and also, what
is their computer doing, how can it be cleaned up, why is this taking
over their system, why is their privacy being invaded?"
The A to Z of hacking includes modules in ports and protocols,
malware, digital forensics and e-mail security and privacy, showing
how to send an e-mail that looks like it comes from someone else.
Teacher Xavier Cadenas says: "The students should be able to
distinguish if the user who sent them an e-mail is a known person and
they are who they claim to be, if the e-mail is legal or not legal.
"They should always be suspicious and not believe everything they
see."
Ethics
Naturally enough the school does not want the students hacking into
real systems.
To test their skills, ISECOM set up four phantom servers for them.
Juame Abella from Hacker High School says: "If they want to hack we
give them a controlled area where they can hack.
"One of the things we want to improve is to get them to give feedback
to the teacher about what they did and how they did it.
"We want to teach them hacking, to be hackers, but ethical hackers,
good hackers, knowing what they do and what the limits are."
The school believes there could be jobs out there for this new breed
of ethical hacker.
They hope the best of the crop passing through Hackers High School
will eventually join university IT students vying for jobs in one of
the computer industry's biggest growth areas, security.
[hohoho - Ed :)]
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