One day you're reciting "Ba-Ba Black Sheep" in grammar school, the next you're breaking into the Bhabha Atomic Research Center. Garage bands are so five minutes ago.

Yet this hardly sticks out among the humdrum of endless hacker tales, the stories of so much left unprotected and the armies of intelligent, well-armed security crackers. Corporations haven't moved with the same passion, despite having the necessary arsenal, like the security probes Greg Shipley reviewed for this issue (page 70). Hackers have written and used such tools for years, but they weren't always as elegant as this breed. Nevertheless, IT managers haven't made them a coveted part of their toolkits, even though more than 70 percent of corporate networks are vulnerable to attack, according to ICSA.

A recent posting to a firewalls listserv warning about system vulnerabilities reveals some of the mind-set: "Looking at job postings for any systems professional provides great clues as to the makeup of the hiring company's network environment. Another one of my favorites is the Centerfold of Network Computing. The accompanying summary sometimes even mentions specific hardware models and OS versions. Last year the issue published just prior to DefCon V featured the network of the New York, New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. DefCon was held a block away and across the street at the Aladdin. Great timing."

While we appreciate the plug, certainly our Centerfold diagrams don't provide such accurate details of customer networks that they could be used to hack those networks. Besides, if teenage hackers broke into New York, New York's reservation system as a protest to rude New York City cab drivers, who could blame them? Please don't mistake this issue's review of security auditing probes and our Centerfold on The Designory (page 64) as a dare.

One of the products in our review is Internet Security Systems' (ISS) Internet Scanner. Ironically, Sam Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, was named to the ISS advisory board in February. Nunn is the co-chairman of the Advisory Committee of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, but he is better known as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which capacity he helped write the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act. I wonder if he has any teenage kids with lots of time on their hands and a knowledge of South Asia.

Nunn sits on the boards of several public companies like Coca-Cola, GE and Texaco, where my sources say he's been known to perform IP port scans with Internet Scanner just for fun.

We also tested Ballista Security Auditing System from Secure Networks, which was purchased in May by Network Associates, the venerable security and systems management vendor whose risquż advertisements have caused some of our readers to blush--and others to poke around the Network Associates Web site for more.

Recently, a Network Associates PR representative wrote to several of our editors, informing them of some new product announcements, one of which read: "PCP Personal Privacy ... with all the security issues these days, this gives consumers the ability to encrypt their files and to send secure e-mail."

So apparently Network Associates is selling sex and drugs. But I'm sure it's all very safe.

--Fritz Nelson, fnelson@nwc.com