I am an avid Maker, Hacker, and Researcher. I teach my kids to hack, pick locks, look things up, and question authority. I'm also the co-founder of ISECOM (www.isecom.org) and as Managing Director am directly involved in all ISECOM projects. In 2000, I created the OSSTMM (www.osstmm.org) for security testing and analysis. I am still the lead developer of the OSSTMM but have also lead the organization into new research challenges like Smarter Safer Better (www.smartersaferbetter.org), the Bad People Project (www.badpeopleproject.org), Hacker Highschool (www.hackerhighschool.org) and the Home Security Methodology (http://isecom.org/research/hsm.html). My strong interest in the properties of trust and how it affects us and our lives has led to developing trust metrics and through that have brought ISECOM more deeply into Human Security.
Authored Comments
Thank you for taking the time to write back to the article. It's clear that this is a passionate topic for you and while we seem to disagree on some points, over all the intentions are mutual- to help young people learn better skills for tomorrow while teaching them to learn better. Do know I'm not trying to change anyone's connotation of hacker- instead we are using it in our advantage- at that age, neurology shows us young adults will associate the danger of doing something with the reward. By calling it Hacker Highschool instead of "Internet Security" we have a greater likelihood of grabbing a teen's interest and attention in seeking reward. But we also make clear, in different words, that hacker is to cybercrimes what sex is to sex crimes.
Just some extra notes here. If you're interested in help getting Hacker Highschool launched or even just a short workshop/seminar for the students grab this:
http://www.isecom.org/ISECOM_Seminars_and_Workshops.pdf
I will be in Virginia (and surrounding area) at the end of May for RVAsec (http://rvasec.com/osstmm/) and in Heidelberg, Germany at the end of March for Troopers (https://www.troopers.de/troopers14/troopers14-1-day-workshop-creating-security-awareness-that-works/index.html) so I can personally work with you on this. If you are in New Mexico or Hawaii, we also have team members living there who can help you set up Hacker Highschool as well.
Thanks all of you who are supporting open education and Hacker Highschool! We need to change the huge unbalance in money allocation at schools by making clear the future of these kids, and us, resides in them learning resourcefulness and independent, critical thinking. Sports is important but while maybe 1 in a 100,000 kids will have a future career in sports, all kids who learn early the traits of hackers will know if they can't find work they'll make work. We need more resources and efforts put into hacker type learning at school.
Remember, your support helps keep these programs running and available. For impartial advisement on security, hacking, and open education, you can also reach me directly through here:
http://clarity.fm/peteherzog