On 4/6/06, Gaurav Mishra gauravtechie@gmail.com wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Prabhat Sandheliya prabhat.news@gmail.com Date: Apr 5, 2006 3:30 PM Subject: [Fsf-friends] Ankit Fadia : The real picture To: Fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in
Yesterday (03-04-2006)I attended a seminar by a so-called "Hacking Guru" Ankit Fadia, at DAVV, Indore (MP) auditorium. I just want to share my feelings with you.
The Seminar was a complete failure, though it was attended by about well over 100 people, but was a complete disaster.
The very first thing by which I was offended badly was using the sacred word "Hacking" to demonstrate something we, the hackers, call cracking. The seminar topic was "Ethical Hacking", now I want to ask Mr Fadia, what is unethical about hacking ? Hacking is very positive word and there in no need to put "Ethical" before it. By the way his seminar topic should be "Ethical Cracking".
If you really want to become a hacker, please read an article by a real hacker, Eric Steven Raymond (ESR). The man who changed the history by writing a paper "Cathedral and Bazaar". please read the article here : http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html< http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/hacker-howto.html%3E
The people who can not differentiate between hacking and cracking, should read an article by the GOD of hackers Richad M Stallman (RMS), the man who started GNU movement all by himself. The gcc (compiler), gdb (debugger), emacs (editor) are some of the most popular softwares in the world written by him. Please read the article here : http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_69.html
The things Fadia demonstrated were ancient techniques used by crackers to break into some one's machine. Now a days even 10 year olds can download these tools from Internet to control others' machines. Can we call them hackers ?? If he calls it hacking, I doubt if he understands the term even "Cracking", leave hacking altogether. This childish behavior is called script kiddie.
IP spoofing, SQL Injection, password cracking softwares, Trojan horse programs, these are the tools of cyber criminals. So I wonder what is the significance of the term "Ethical" here ??
In the entire session I kept waiting for some program or utility, written by himself. But I don't thing he had something like this to share with audience. The entire session was demonstration of third party utilities, and the saddest thing was no mention of the name of any author of any utility. He didn't care to give some credits to the utility developers. What a shame !!!
Mr Fadia, I real hacker always respect the creativity of others, and before using their work proper credits are given, this is the hacker's attitude. It's not like that, you download something from Internet, use it and forget the person, who made it. That's pretty mean.
Second most annoying thing was that he calls himself a "hacker" and was using a Windows XP operating system ????
I have been in to computers for the past 10 years and I never come across any real hacker who uses Windows. I met Brian(Apache creator), Andy Cleen, Alon cox, Rusty (all networking gods), RMS (the GOD himself) but all of them were using some or other form of Unix or Linux.
Come on, MR Fadia, Windows is the worst OS in the world, full of security holes, so what is the point to break into a Windows machine ???? What do you want to prove ????
He only once mentioned Linux, just to tell how you can use it's live CD to boot a Windows machine and cracke the password.
Actually, before attending the seminar, I Googled a lot about Fadia and his work. But what I could find was self acclaiming statement by Fadia about himself and his future and just crap, crap and crap by technology illiterate Indian news papers' reports.
I just want to share my findings with you.
Vulnerabilities patches by Fadia = 0 (He may know how to break in, but doesn't know how to fix up) Bugtraq id's by Fadia = 0 Hacking / Security tool by fadia = 0 (He simply Goolge and download the tools from Internet, that's not cracking. Actual cracker is the programmer, but Fadia never ever gives due credits. Now that's not hacking, that's stealing) Any open source software by Fadia = 0 (He is afraid of suggesting Linux to people, 'coz it's secure) Any Linux or Windows software security patch = 0 Any recommendation or recognition by Real Hacker Community = 0 (They laugh at him. He is just a kid) Software / Cryptography patents by Fadia = 0 Algorithms by Fadia = 0 Any official citation by FBI/CIA/CBI for Fadia = 0 (They don't even bother about any explanation) Any confirmation of his self-claims = 0 (Nobody, expect him knows, if they are real) Any confirmation of him decrypting Osama's message = 0 (Hahahahahahahaha) Any original technical tutorial or book by Fadia = 0 (He simply copy the things and never he never ever gives due credits to the
original authors.) Any originality in his tutes or books = 0 (Hahahahahahaha) Skill level of Fadia = Only God knows !!!
I tried to read a few books by him, but to my wonder some part of his books are nothing but simple "copy and paste" material from well known sites for Windows registry editing. Please visit www.winguides.com and compare the material with his first book. Oh God ! this is the clear violation of intellectual property rights of the website. Please inform the webmaster. I have done it already.
I was astonished by the course he came to promote here, "Ethical hacker certified by Ankit Fadia" ! He sill is child in hacking field, and he is giving the certificates for hacking ????? And worst thing, Reliance web world is promoting it. What a shame !!! Have all gone mad ? Can't they see ?
Unfortunately, question and answer round was cut from the seminar, that's also because of Fadia arrived there one hour late. Well, that's India's celebrity style statement. Otherwise, I would have asked all these questions to him there only.
Anyways, I went to him at the end of the seminar, and asked if Windows is so vulnerable, can he suggest audience to use Linux rather than Windows. And the reply came was straight "NO". What a shame ???
I understood the reason, why he said no. The reason is same why Microsoft does not patch up it's OS. Plain economics. If you make system secure with Linux who is going to ask for people like Fadia, so called "security expert" ???
I want to make an appeal to all of you, please make all of your friends aware of these facts. Let one should not get undeserved advantage. I also want to appeal news papers, please do not make a hero out of nothing. Stop polluting the honest media by prejudiced reports.
And at the end I want to tell Mr Fadia, that I don't have any personal problem with you or your achievements, but please behave properly in hacking community. We hackers are very positive people we never ever try to harm anybody, until he comes to our or our philosophy's way. Please stop calling your self a hacker, if does not understand the hacker culture.
And for god sake, stop behaving like a child, now you are in college, so GROW UP !!!
Prabhat.
PS : I am sending this mail to Mr Fadia, Reliance web world, most of Linux
mailing lists and all of my friends. Please post your comments.lug-indore@googlegroups.com
hi prabhat,
Thanks for taking initiative. let me add some more.
I attended his seminar yesterday at I2IT,pune . This time also he didnt get time for questions-answers .In his seminar, he defined 'hackers' - good people who work with security guy for ethical purpose and 'crackers' - computer criminals who steals passwords, does financial harms, etc. Now, his seminar was full of password cracking tools. he taught there - How to do attacks on site with hiding their identity. how can we use trojans to harm to remote computer. howto send forged emails. how can one deface website and how can he order jewelry for free with love demo. My claim - Is this comes under ethical hacking or cracking as per your definition? do public really need to be taught these things to secure their machines? and why dont you encourage them to use secure browsers like opera, mozilla? if he says many websites/proprietary softwares steals users information, why not ask them to move to open source world? why you do not tell them that most secure way of using internet is to use net as non-root user in linux box? :-\
people here are talking about ankit fadia like hes the next jesus because he is young and wrote a book. whats so hard about that? , you can compile the information from the internet ,rewrite it and throw in some remarks about this you understand, then make it read nice and you have a book. he said he wrote his first book in 15 days. my claim - I could have done same in 2 days. ;-)
if u think he is quite young , then compare him with all those 12-13 years old kids from US who wrote big viruses/worms that caused billions of dollars damage to US.
he does not talk about stack manipulation, reversing os hooks , kernel data structures. he does not owe any security research. He just keeps knowledge abt how hackers hack. Is that make him big hacker? and if he is so big hacker, why doesnt defcon , blackhat meetings entertain him?
In his doordarshan interview, he told that he is working for many multinational security companies and can not revel their names for security reasons. =)) =)) My claim - I am working for a single multinational security company that is on the top of all your fucking companies and can not revel their names for the same. :-D
ankit's own opinion abt his book(copy-pasted from http://neworder.box.sk/forum.php?did=edge317&thread=23811 ) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not at all the youngest hacker in the world and definitely not even the youngest writer in the world, neither do I have any desire to become so. The media has been responsible for giving me titles, which I am no way going to accept. I do not know everything there is to know about computer security and believe that every single individual registered at Neworder can definitely teach me a lot.... My first book is strictly meant for newbies who are starting out in the hacking scene. It does not talk about much advanced stuff and may not be useful to seasoned computer security experts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ for more analysis - read all postings http://neworder.box.sk/forum.php?did=edge317 So... he says his book is for newbies... for those of you whoever found his book facinating, you are newbie. There is a lot to learn about hacking.
From hindustan times ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Americans had tried almost everything, but they just couldn't crack an encrypted message they came across while investigating the 9/11 attacks. Finally, they approached a 17-year-old boy in Delhi about whom The New York Times had done a feature. Over the next 10 days, Ankit Fadia hunkered down in his room in Delhi and came up with the key to crack the message. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- so what was NIST,NCSC and NSA were doing at that time? they created cryptography standards, algorithms and they need ankit to recognize their own algorithms implemented. cryptography is one of the most complex mathematics division!! NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world !!! And what was ankit doing when NIST announced 'call for algorithm' for AES? and how does classified intelligence agency in which he works allow him to disclose that he decrypted laden's men's message? my claim - this agency came to me first for decryption. but I was involved in secret project of NASA that time. =)) Actually Osama has not been tracked till now. The question comes, why U.S. government did not continue to take help of Ankit till osama is physically captured??
If u search on the google for ankit fadia, this will be the first link. http://www.rediff.com/search/2002/apr/18ankit.htm His claim is that he found in chat conversation that pakistani hackers are going to hack some indian site and he reported it to US spy organisation and that spy organisation warned that site. So what is he doing when 50-60 indian sites are hacked by paki group daily? Here is the AIC(Anti India Crew - paki hacker group) explanation about above rediff article on the defaced website http://www.zone-h.org/defaced/2002/04/26/bhelapp.bhelhyd.co.in/ and even if somebody heard hacking chat conversation and reported to that site, is that make him big hacker? and why didnt he accept challenge of AIC when AIC has announced that it would be defacing the website of the Central Board of Excise and Customs , www.cbec.gov.in within two days and challenged Ankit Fadia to prevent the defacement? http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/04/30/stories/2002043002271300.htm
let me give it a final shot. his own website ankitfadia.com was hacked.(it seems that he sold this domain to some search engine company these days.) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/141313.cms he says he could not do anything as it was dos attack. In his rediff article he told he uploaded site with anti-cracking software and stopped site from being hacked. then how did dos attack finished his own site? even his company website - e2-labs.com was defaced. check http://zone-h.org/en/news/read/id=3861/
Then why is he so popular?? because Indian people dont verify information. Media likes to create hype. can you recall uri gellar? some days ago, ankit said he is going to open food restaurant in pune. media stated - running restaurant is just a trick. he is doing some secret projects. =)) =))
now do you still believe he is good hacker?
he said he receives 150-200 fan mails a day. lets all linux users in India mail him 1 harsh mail a day.
-- yogesh chavan cslug and plug member pune