A look at a Russian hacker school

Ilya Vasilyev might be the closest thing to a martial arts master the computer world has.

For the last 10 years, the long-haired, soft-spoken Russian has been running a school, or perhaps more accurately a dojo, for hacking in Moscow. He trains his students in computer skills that run the gamut from assembly language and networking right on through to cracking programs and virus writing. They're trained in "hacker ethics" -- don't harm people, don't misuse the skills -- and can gain the equivalents of white and black belts, though in this case bracelets are substituted.

He recognizes that people can misuse these skills. But he sees it as pure knowledge, which he and other late Soviet hackers gained piecemeal, and without much help through the 80s and 90s. He believes that hacking skills are like martial arts, which themselves are essentially designed to kill. Gaining these skills brings responsibility to use them correctly, he says.