Re: Short story?
Permanently behind on my email: On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 03:22:41PM -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: > I'm trying to remember details (author, title) of a short story that I > read once. Its main feature, or the one that's standing out in my > mind, is the obsessive hacker who studies a target to figure out his > password, at which he only has one guess. The zinger is that the very > security concious target has selected that password as a booby trap, > and there's a second password which our hacker doesn't have. > Does this ring a bell for anyone? Yes--except that the password wasn't a booby trap, what the user did was to aways enter a wrong password first, then the right password. In the story the password guesser was an adult in (IIRC) a 5 year olds body, and his partner in this crime had his brain burned out by certain Organized Crime individuals who were not happy with the passports the password theft made possible. It was either in an anthology of William Gibsons work, or in an anthology of cyberpunk stuff from the 80s or early 90s. Sorry I can't remember any more. -- "Fear of death will not prevent dying - but it may prevent | Quit smoking: living." | 238d, 13h ago --Anonymous | petro@ | bounty.org
Re: Short story?
On Mon, Dec 16, 2002 at 03:03:29PM -0800, Petro wrote: | Permanently behind on my email: | | On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 03:22:41PM -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: | > I'm trying to remember details (author, title) of a short story that I | > read once. Its main feature, or the one that's standing out in my | > mind, is the obsessive hacker who studies a target to figure out his | > password, at which he only has one guess. The zinger is that the very | > security concious target has selected that password as a booby trap, | > and there's a second password which our hacker doesn't have. | > Does this ring a bell for anyone? | | Yes--except that the password wasn't a booby trap, what the user did | was to aways enter a wrong password first, then the right password. | | In the story the password guesser was an adult in (IIRC) a 5 year | olds body, and his partner in this crime had his brain burned out by | certain Organized Crime individuals who were not happy with the | passports the password theft made possible. | | It was either in an anthology of William Gibsons work, or in an | anthology of cyberpunk stuff from the 80s or early 90s. | | Sorry I can't remember any more. Dogwalker, Orson Scott Card. But thanks! Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
Re: Short story?
No, I haven't read that story, but I was wondering if, in the dual-message cryptogram we've been discussing (under "eJazeera") if, instead of two messages, there are two executable files.The "true" one will spit out the desired message (which may in inself be an executable, of course), and the fake one belches up a trojan, or whatever (or a virus plus a viable fake message). I assume this kind of thing has been discussed previously? From: Adam Shostack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Short story? Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 15:22:41 -0500 I'm trying to remember details (author, title) of a short story that I read once. Its main feature, or the one that's standing out in my mind, is the obsessive hacker who studies a target to figure out his password, at which he only has one guess. The zinger is that the very security concious target has selected that password as a booby trap, and there's a second password which our hacker doesn't have. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume _ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
