Hey, Kev, you know what?

You are RIGHT. Absolutely, 100%, NOT WRONG. Your "tirade" about black hats vs. white hats relating to the old Westerns is exactly the same refernce my instructor made on the first day of CEH class. Hollywood films don't help the matter much either, they make it worse. Movies like The Matrix, and The Net, with Sandra Bullock, make the problem worse. The general public is fascinated and generally intrigued by the black hats, but they don't understand the underlying concepts, such as social engineering, fingerprinting, enumeration, Denial of Service, etc. They don't have the desirte to do the research it takes to fully understand the situation.

You know what you should do? If you are really this concerned about it, you should go to NW3C click on Research, which is the site of the National White Collar Crime Center in Fairmont, WV.
(I had a job interview there on May 1st). You can volunteer on the site for their National White Collar Crime Consortium. I submitted for it when I was there on May 1st. They have a magazine [The Informant,]they put out (not sure of the schedule) all about Internent Fraud, including Elder Fraud. This magazine is full of actual cases the FBI has pursued without any actual names given. Of course, they cannot use real names. The NWCC is a Federal non-profit organization that gets grant money from Congress, the FBI, and Homeland Security. Fascinating stuff to read about, especially from a Federal standpoint. I'll bet if a few more of the black hats out there knew the feeling of the FBI knocking on your door, they might think twice about it.

  Did you know there are Internet fraud scammers that continue to pursue their victims even AFTER they're sentenced to Federal prison? Read a few of the stories in this magazine. After you shake off the goose bumps (Heck, I had to) you'll be asking yourself, "What were they THINKING???" Really scary stuff in that magazine, and it's all TRUE. But the names have been dropped to protect the innocent.
I'll tell you, I never used to watch the old FBI tv show, but I have new appreciation for the FBI now. I'm promising myself (I already promised EC-council) I'll be good. I don't want to do NO time in Federal pen. 

Hey, No Problemo.

Lemme know what you think about it. It really is cool, ya think? Cool, but scary, too.

On the NW3C site, click on "Resources" to access the Informant Magazine section. The Informant magazine comes out 3 times a year, I have gotten one issue in the mail already since my interview on May 1st.


 

No problem. They ARE real. I've been there. The FBI is real, make no mistake.
Like I said, I submitted my volunteer paperwork there in person, May 1st. To this day, nobody has contacted me asking me to do anything. I'm, not even listed as a member. Ideally, for you to be affiliated with the NW3C, you should be involved somehow with law enforcement; an officer in a police dept., a detective, etc. I am not affilliated in any way with law enforcement, although I plan to someday soon head over to my local police dept to ask them if they have a cybercrime division, and to ask if I can get involved somehow.

We'll see.

 

    I had a different thought on this topic. Rather than try and suppress the glamorization of Black Hats, perhaps a better avenue would be the glamorization of the security professional.  I have already seen the term “Security Warrior” and “Security Samurai” and I do like all the Sun Zu quotes that seem to abound in every network security book I have read. “Know your enemy as you know yourself.” has to be the most quoted!