In recent weeks, we’ve been inundated with news of hackers – from Sony Pictures Studios to CentCom’s Twitter and YouTube pages, and everything in between.
But on the flip side, there have been the hackers we applaud who are using their skills for good. As my guest this morning – Ralph Echemendia (theethicalhacker.net) – the best analogy is that of Robin Hood.
We’ve seen these hackers use their skills to out the rapists and make the town of Steubenville, OH, deal with their high school football “heroes,” challenge the KKK in Ferguson, MO, and even target the jihadist terrorists’ online entities!
I’m grateful that these masters of the keyboard are putting their skills to good use. They’re like the comic book superheroes of our time, except these guys really do come to the rescue. I say “More Power to Them!”
Ralph Echemendia teaches people (and their companies) how to protect themselves against hackers — by teaching them how to be hackers! He says it’s learnable by all of us, even the tech/computer not-so-savvy.
As for protecting ourselves, we’ve all heard the advice about creating complicated passwords, and not using the same one for different accounts. Ralph had some advice I hadn’t heard before: set up three tiers of passwords- one for social networking, one for email, and one for banking and the like. As for using unintelligible (and impossible to remember passwords), he suggested using sentences that you can remember (perhaps a nursery rhyme line, like Mary had a little lamb, but substituting a number for one of the letters – like mary had a l1ttle Lamb). I like it!
In hour two, it was a gathering of the Gliberal Goddesses, as GottaLaff, Amy Simon and I gathered for our first gab-fest of 2015, talking Golden Globes, George Clooney, and lots more.
Back tomorrow with Susie Madrak and whatever else the day brings, radio or not!
