Researcher Lieberman would like to see kids taught about the ethics of computer use and hacking and says businesses should be willing to foot the bill. "The government is busy chasing terrorists, but financial institutions are losing millions," he says. Schools should develop courses to channel the desire to learn about computing into positive avenues, and businesses should be willing to finance those efforts. "With financial institutions losing millions to hackers, they ought to be funding the development of special learning programs," he says.
Kennesaw State's Mattord agrees. "There's no age that's too early to start, and it would help some students on the edge from going over," he says.
A few who spent their teenage years hacking doubt that education would make a difference. "A lot of people doing this stuff like doing it because they're doing something illegal or edgy. It's about the thrill of it," eEye Digital's Maiffret says. "I don't think it's the same thrill to break into some university system where you're allowed."
The need for that edginess may provide additional insight into the thought process of hackers--and people attracted to work in security. "It takes a certain mind-set to understand security," says Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security Inc., a security-services firm. "I can't walk into a store without figuring out how to steal something. I can't walk into a voting booth without seeing if I can vote twice. Normal people think about how systems work. Security people think about how systems can be forced to fail."
Richard Thieme, who writes and lectures about computer security and has spoken at numerous hacker and security conventions, agrees. "You can't be a good security person or good cop unless you know how a criminal thinks, and you can't know how a criminal thinks unless at least part of your heart is devoted to the black arts of larceny," he says. "It's all about how you choose to channel and harness that energy."
