 If email existed on April 24, 1184 BC, I'm sure this would still be circulating today- herd mentality would keep it alive by reinventing it. Although the story hasn't been historically proven there's a 3100 year old lesson here-
"nobody will read it anyway."
And that's ok. It's because I make some pretty good money at times by people who don't listen. Actually there is a lesson- No matter how "state of the art" security is, people freely give that security away. And it happened 3100 years ago. Just as it happens now and will continue to happen.
Anywho, the story of the Trojan Horse war began when a prince of Troy eloped with the king of Sparta's wife, Helen. She was historically refered to as "the face that launched a thousand ships." Three millenniums later scientist and science-fiction author Isaac Asimov would define the milliHelen as the amount of feminine beauty sufficient to launch one ship. If one could imagine that. It pissed off a lot a Greeks, though..
So as the story goes, the Greeks left them a large wooden horse as a victory offering in their defeat. Imagine why anyone would want to do that. The Trojans hauled the thing inside the walls of Troy, and Greek soldiers descended from the horse after dark to slay the guards and commence destruction of the city.
And they were warned also: Cassandra was a Trojan prophet who warned against accepting the horse. Another skeptic was Laocoon, who Virgil says first uttered, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
Today there's the name Trojan horse for software that seems to perform one action but actually performs another, usually with malicious intentions. There's a cybersecurity lesson from this story:
* Persistence: The Greeks had besieged Troy for 10 years without result. Their persistence paid off. They just found a new and creative way to hit them.
* Epistemology:: Things are not always what they seem to be-"what appears too good to be tue, is too good to be true."
* Virgil, updated: Beware of strangers bearing gifts. Again- if it's too good to be true then it probably is too good to be true.
* Social engineering: The horse flattered the Trojans, who loved horses and were delighted with the gift. Not one of them thought of the dangers. Today, it's called herd mentality and ignorance.
* Engineering: The horse was on wheels, designed to make it easy for the Trojans to pull it inside their defenses.
* Ignoring warning messages: Cassandra and Laocoon were both disregarded.
* Delay: The Trojan Horse did not do its damage immediately, but waited for the opportune moment.
* Size: It only took a handful of Greeks to unleash a lot of damage. They did it using the element of surprise and deception and hit them when they least exepcted it.
* Negating security from inside: They killed the guards and opened the gates from within, rendering Troy's strong walls useless. The Greek ships had come ashore again, and their army poured in.
In the 1980's long before the Internet had reached herd mentality, um that is critical mass, a hacker named Captain Crunch wreaked havoc on ATT's telephone network. Aside from the cereal box whistle that gave him his namesake and claim to fame he hacked ATT networks for years virtually undetected. When he finally got caught they asked him how he got through all of ATT's supposedly bulletproof security infrastructure.
" All I had to do is engage one of ATT's employees over the phone. They would freely give me everything that I needed."
* Scope of damage: Troy was burnt and destroyed.
* Permanent effects: Troy lost the war. Think about what you can lose with a virus.
and equally important:
* Common Sense: WTF is a freekin giant wooden horse on wheels doing sitting here? Why would somebody be so generous? If something online lures you or prompts you to take some course of action, wouldn't you ask yourself why someone would want you to do that? Apparently not one Trojan thought otherwise, and despite the warnings they freely pulled the horse into their city and then closed their walls of security. And when they slept, they got destroyed.
I suppose some of you think I'm a literary buff. Well, I'm not. I stole most of the article from Wired magazine (My comrade IntrospectiveOne was observant enough to point the article out to me even though I am a Wired subscriber, but then again hey- we happen to be comrades in committing serious private crimes) and the History Channel reinactment of the Trojan Horse story. I do enjoy stories that hold historical relevance. In other words boring stuff that nobody cares about. I do though. I have a good reason too although I almost work against myself. Like I said, I make some good money off of people who don't listen.Nobody understands that the hackers are not out out to get them. It's because you freely go to them. Just like the Trojans freely pulled the horse into their city.
Cheers!
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