Hackers Testifying at the United States Senate, May 19, 1998

[Chuckt]

Hackers Testifying at the United States Senate, May 19, 1998 (L0pht Heavy Industries)



This is the group Loft that testified before a congressional Committee about computer security back in 1998. They essentially said after 19 minutes that Computer Security doesn't exist. They've also said that the Internet wasn't designed for e-commerce and that the internet was 20 years old at the time and that it was being made to do what it wasn't designed to do. At 20 minutes, they give you a couple of analogies as to why we're not getting alerts to security problems.

What has really changed in the last 14 years? I may be the minority but I still believe that some work has been made but I don't believe that security is really adequate so in that sense, while they have raised the bar on security, I don't believe security really exists.

I was talking to a friend who travels the world and her credit card is not good in Africa. Why is that? It is because the same system isn't secure.

When I grew up, I had free checking. There are few banks that offer free checking anymore. They want you to use the internet to do online bill pay so essentially you replace a teller which makes doing business cheaper for the bank. The problem is there is no insurance offered to me if my money is stolen electronically. The banks say that their system is safe but I've had my computer broken into. If my credit card is stolen, I am liable for the first $50 dollars by law. There is no such law limiting my liability for losing my money online for having my account information stolen. And if you read the news every day on google, there are news stories about systems being taken advantage of every day so I'm not confident in the safety of adopting what people are being told is safe because I don't believe it is.