Garbage can provide important details for hackers: names, telephone numbers, a company's internal jargon.

Both social engineering and technical attacks played a big part in what I was able to do. It was a hybrid. I used social engineering when it was appropriate, and exploited technical vulnerabilities when it was appropriate.

The Americans are the most gullible, because they don't like to deny co-workers' requests.

Should we fear hackers? Intention is at the heart of this discussion.

It doesn't work the same way everywhere. The Americans are the most gullible, because they don't like to deny co-workers' requests. People in the former Soviet bloc countries are less trusting, perhaps because of their previous experiences with their countries' secret services.

As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool.

When I was in prison, a Colombian drug lord, offered me $5 million in cash to manipulate a computer system so that he would be released. I turned him down.