Sonoma State University computer science professor George Ledin is teaching his students how to hack and creating controversy in doing it.

The companies that make their living fighting viruses aren’t happy about what’s going on in Ledin’s classroom. He has been likened to A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology to North Korea. Managers at some computer-security companies have even vowed not to hire Ledin’s students.

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Ledin insists that his students mean no harm, and can’t cause any because they work in the computer equivalent of biohazard suits: closed networks from which viruses can’t escape. Rather, he’s trying to teach students to think like hackers so they can devise antidotes.

I’m surprised that such courses aren’t more prevalent and the backlash that Ledin (and potentially his students) will face. The best point of the article is made by Ledin himself,

“Why should we shy away from learning something that is important to everyone?,” Ledin asks. “Yes, you could inflict some damage on society, but you could inflict damage with chemistry and physics, too.”

When you base security on people’s ignorance, you just get ignorant people fighting clever criminals.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 1:34 pm by Anil Polat and is filed under hacking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.