I am a hacker...

After 60 years, I admit I was a hacker.  Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. I was never caught. "A guy Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"... Damn idiot. They're all alike. But did you, in your three-piece psychology and modern technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world... Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other cows, this crap they teach us bores me... Damn underachiever. They're all idiot. You are assholes. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..." Damn asshole . Probably copied it. They're all alike. I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me... Or thinks I'm a smart ass... Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here... Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike. And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all... Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike... You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert. This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike. Identity attacks cannot be prevented or solved with any single technology, tool, or technique. There is no pinch-hit quick solution. Identity and access management is an ongoing process that invariably must become a critical part of how you manage security for your infrastructure. In practice, this is a process that never stops since your business never stops. Given our roles as technology innovators and advocates, we get to think deeply about and openly discuss a wide variety of security-related topics with this learned and stimulating group of people. One of the most prevalent questions we get asked is, “What is the future of identity and privilege?” With cloud, mobile, DevOps, IoT, and AI technologies now being deployed in most businesses, it’s fascinating to consider where our industry will be in 10 years from now. Sadly, neither of us have that mythical crystal ball, so predicting what challenges lie ahead in this space will always be a gamble. The best recommendation we can give is to focus on the core tenets of IAM that have been proven to work time and time again. We can advise that you should adopt and implement the security best practices that have passed the test of time (R2D2 and quantum computing aside). So, as we look back on what we’ve learned in this industry so far, we offer a series of what can best be described as “basic success patterns for Identity Governance and privilege management.” We will, of course, continue to mature and develop our own thinking in this area, but for now at least we can offer a unified and complementary strategy for how your organization should approach our areas of expertise in governance and privilege management. Hackers fail primarily due to poor operational security (OpSec), technical mistakes, and human error.Operational Security (OpSec) MistakesDigital Footprints: Reusing personal emails, logging into real accounts from malicious servers, or linking financial/crypto trails back to their true identity.Ego and Bragging: Sharing details of their attacks on online forums or social circles, which alerts law enforcement.Slips in Routine: Forgetting to turn on a VPN or hiding a real IP address just once.Technical and Execution ErrorsBad Tool Execution: Writing flawed malware scripts that crash targeted systems or fail to run at all.Target Defenses: Underestimating modern security tools, system logs, and automated threat detection networks.Hardware Mishandling: Physically damaging devices or chips while trying to force a hack on physical tech The following was written shortly before my death.