Little Red Riding Hood could become a fable about identity theft and the need for public-key cryptography.

The Hacker and the Honeypot

Zero, a notoriously ambitious hacker, had set his sights on a particular server. Rumors swirled in the dark corners of the internet that this server held a treasure trove: a database brimming with user accounts and password hashes. For Zero, breaching it would solidify his legend.

He spent days, then weeks, launching every exploit he knew. He tried SQL injections, brute-force attacks, phishing attempts, and probing for every conceivable vulnerability. Each time, the server remained unyielding, its digital defenses ironclad. Zero’s fingers flew across his keyboard, lines of code blurring on his multiple screens, but the coveted data remained tantalizingly out of reach.

Frustration mounted. Sleep became a luxury, and the thrill of the chase turned into a gnawing obsession. Yet, despite his relentless efforts and advanced tools, the server simply wouldn’t yield its secrets.

Finally, after one last, exhaustive attempt failed, Zero leaned back in his chair, a bitter laugh escaping him. “Forget it,” he muttered to his empty room, “that server is a honeypot anyway! Just a decoy set up to waste a hacker’s time. There’s probably no real data on it at all.”

Oh, and the lesson. Almost forgot. Err… Don’t be a noob, don’t trust everything you read online, know what you’re hacking… oh bugger this post is going off the rails. I’m sure there’s a good lesson somewhere in there. Buried deep…

I’ve already heard urban legends about people buying fake stuff on E-Bay [empty iPhone boxes, etc]

You’re the information era? You got some 'splainin to do