Stories about: The Good Guys

Version 3.0 of BackTrack has been released. BackTrack is a Linux-based distribution dedicated to penetration testing or hacking (depending on how you look at it). It contains more than 300 of the world's most popular open source or freely distributable hacking tools.

In January, Kevin Kelly wrote an essay entitled "Better Than Free" that explained which concepts held value on the Internet. This generated a lot of interest, mostly around the question of how best to make money out of these concepts. As a career security guy, I found myself wondering how on earth my field will respond -- how does security need to adapt to support business models based on these values? When we're used to locking everything down, how do we respond when people start calling for openness?

The next time you relinquish your personal identity to simply enter a venue or purchase something, spare a thought for how the information might be stored, transmitted and used in the future. Such an overload of identity information may lead to a dramatic escalation in fraud, claims one legal eye.

Those who commit cybercrime know they need to stay on the cutting edge of technology to come up with new and different ways to swindle people. Luckily, the good guys are also spending time in research labs developing ways to thwart the latest tricks employed by spammers, phishers and other criminals.