http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Wed, 29 Jan 2003 20:03:22 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/01/27/133944.php#comment-3092 True "Hacking" Lives Back in the day (as the kids say today) a "good hack" was a tiny program that executed very quickly and did something very big. The word was powerful because computers weren't, so efficiency was a necessity. Computer criminals wound up purloining the term in the 1990s, much to the dismay of their elders, so that the word "hacking" now generally means someone breaking into someone else's box, either to steal from it or deface it. Well, the nasty worm that disabled Microsoft SQL databases (and some ATM nets) last weekend combined the two definitions. The worm, dubbed "Sapphire," was just 376 bytes. This meant it was small enough to come in a single packet on a packet network. If you don't want to be bothered by this nasty hack, get the Microsoft patch, make sure it works, then enjoy the irony. Then tremble a bit, because once a trick is learnt, it don't get unlearnt. 3092@blogcritics.org Wed, 29 Jan 2003 20:03:22 EST