::scr hacking in life

Simon Wistow scr@thegestalt.org
Tue, 5 Feb 2002 17:33:20 +0000


On Tue, Feb 05, 2002 at 05:06:52PM +0000, Chris Heathcote said:
> I've always said that if someone gave me 100 grand, I could get them a UK
> number one. I'm interested in the poor, poor systems put in place to stop
> rigging.

Didn't the KLF do it for cheaper than that? ;) 

Seriously though, I'm interested, how would you do it?
 
> Another one is going into an office, and sitting down and pretending to
> work. For 6 months. Also, walking into an office and attending a random
> meeting.

Social Engineering is by far the most interestingaspect of hacking AFAIC
- organisations work on the beehive principle : bees will attack
anything that tries to enter their hive but, once it's inside, they
won't even notice it. Similarly half the time if you just sit down in an
office people will assume that Someone has put you there. It's Douglas
Adams' "Someone Elses Problem Field".

Some friends of mine from the Army were given a letter from their CO
which stated that they were on an initiative exercise for the army and
that they had no money but had to complete several tasks such as travel
from Oop North down to London, stay in a 5 star hotel, wear more than a
grands worth of clothes, interview the policeman outside 10 Downing
Street and then get home.

They had to have photographs of these to proove it. Except they weren't
given a camera. And they had to get the film developed. 


Put it this way (in an effort to make this more of a discussion) how
many people here would like to do this sort of thing (rob banks etc
etc) and is this a fairly common desire or is it a kind of hackery
personality trait?

In formal logic 

Are all people who would like to do this hackers?

and/or


Would all people who are hackers like to do this?