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TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

theguardian.com

21–30 of 51 posts

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because greybeard's IT stack and MO is entrenched, conventional, and defendable-against this is utterly ridiculous

What is ridiculous about it? I have been coding for 30 years and am happy to pronounce that younger coders have a far more nimble mind than me. I'll destroy them on complex software engineering but I'm constantly impressed by their innovations. Anybody who finds this "ridiculous" is either a rare evergreen genius, or more likely, self-satisfyingly complacent.

I'm quite young and I'm curious about those "innovations" myself.

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because greybeard's IT stack and MO is entrenched, conventional, and defendable-against this is utterly ridiculous

What is ridiculous about it? I have been coding for 30 years and am happy to pronounce that younger coders have a far more nimble mind than me. I'll destroy them on complex software engineering but I'm constantly impressed by their innovations. Anybody who finds this "ridiculous" is either a rare evergreen genius, or more likely, self-satisfyingly complacent.

So you're still writing code in Delphi or maybe Zortech C++ ?

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is ridiculous about it? I have been coding for 30 years and am happy to pronounce that younger coders have a far more nimble mind than me. I'll destroy them on complex software engineering but I'm constantly impressed by their innovations. Anybody who finds this "ridiculous" is either a rare evergreen genius, or more likely, self-satisfyingly complacent.

I'm quite young and I'm curious about those "innovations" myself.

[deleted]

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is ridiculous about it? I have been coding for 30 years and am happy to pronounce that younger coders have a far more nimble mind than me. I'll destroy them on complex software engineering but I'm constantly impressed by their innovations. Anybody who finds this "ridiculous" is either a rare evergreen genius, or more likely, self-satisfyingly complacent.

So you're still writing code in Delphi or maybe Zortech C++ ?

try Reddit. Your (zero insight) posts are not constructive here.

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#25
TalkTalk spent the weekend in full PR mode claiming the attack was the work of cyber jihadi's[0] and suggesting huge resources were used to target and overcome their defenses (i.e. the "no-one could have withstood this sort of attack" defense) and then switched to a defense of "no legal requirement to encrypt customer financial data" when people got upset about their bank details being pilfered[1] and reports of bank accounts being emptied started to emerge.

Now we find out the likely candidate is a spotty teenager. I wonder how TalkTalk plan on trashing this kid now.

[0] http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/talktalk-hack-by-cyber-... plus many others [1] e.g. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/26/talktalk_crypto_obli...

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is ridiculous about it? I have been coding for 30 years and am happy to pronounce that younger coders have a far more nimble mind than me. I'll destroy them on complex software engineering but I'm constantly impressed by their innovations. Anybody who finds this "ridiculous" is either a rare evergreen genius, or more likely, self-satisfyingly complacent.

So you're still writing code in Delphi or maybe Zortech C++ ?

We're still shipping Delphi, yes.

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#27

I immediately thought of Jonny Lee Miller's character in Hackers, who is caught in a major hack as a child and banned from using computers until he is over 18. Of course it is now many times more difficult to avoid computers than it was in in the early 1990s.

Samy Kamkar was banned from using a computer for three years in 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samy_Kamkar#Samy_worm

the USSS evidence sticker on his PowerBook was a real conversation starter.

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#28
Man, I have some real cognitive dissonance when it comes to physical versus cyber crimes. If someone were to leave their car unlocked then have items stolen out of it, I would find the criminal despicable; people make mistakes and don't deserve to be robbed for it. When a company leaves its data vulnerable and someone steals from it, I find the company despicable, as if they were "asking for it". Apparently the hacker was trying to extort TalkTalk, so its hard to sympathize with him, but I still find myself blaming TalkTalk first. Its really hard to know what the right attitude towards these breaches is supposed to be.

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#29
post #28

Man, I have some real cognitive dissonance when it comes to physical versus cyber crimes. If someone were to leave their car unlocked then have items stolen out of it, I would find the criminal despicable; people make mistakes and don't deserve to be robbed for it. When a company leaves its data vulnerable and someone steals from it, I find the company despicable, as if they were "asking for it". Apparently the hacke…

Your comparison is not analogous. It should be; a car owner that left the car unlocked with a bunch of private information inside.

Re: TalkTalk cyber-attack: boy, 15, arrested in Northern Ireland

#30
post #28

Man, I have some real cognitive dissonance when it comes to physical versus cyber crimes. If someone were to leave their car unlocked then have items stolen out of it, I would find the criminal despicable; people make mistakes and don't deserve to be robbed for it. When a company leaves its data vulnerable and someone steals from it, I find the company despicable, as if they were "asking for it". Apparently the hacke…

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