Passage One

Security experts were not surprised by the FBI’s warning last week that more than 1 million credit card numbers have been stolen from e-commerce websites in the last 12 months by crackers who took advantage of a hole that could have been patched with software that was made available three years ago. It is believed that most of the dirty work was being done by organized groups in Russia and the Ukraine. Many of their peers in the Western world say Eastern Europe’s computer crackers and hackers are the most skillful in the world--far superior to the so-called "script kiddies" who have gained a fair amount of notoriety(臭名昭著). "We call Russia the Hackzone because there are so many of us here, and we are so good at what we do," said a self-described cracker living in Moscow. He claims he is often hired to "have fun" with the websites and networks of his employer’s competitors. He is paid 3,000 rubles(卢布) per job--about $ 104 American. It may not sound like much, but a college professor gets paid about $ 150 per month. The Russian scene is incredibly sophisticated. These guys are excellent programmers and they really understand networks--how to get in and out without a trace, which makes it unusual that they have been at the center of some notorious computer crime cases. To the Moscow residents, who describe them as "secret security guy", cracking and are important parts of the underground culture in Russia, as they are in many other countries. But they feel that there is more approval for Russia’s crackers throughout Russia than there is elsewhere. When they were in school, in the 1980s, they were encouraged to hack American software. They had to dissect(仔细研究) the programs to understand them so that they could make them work on their systems. It is believed that many Russian agers start cracking because they want to get on the Internet but can’t afford the costs of the service. So they learn how to steal passwords. Furthermore, they can’t afford to spend two months’ salary on a copy of Microsoft Office. But they can spend a half-month salary and get a CD burner that lets them make many copies of software. What is the better investment

Many people in Russia become crackers and hackers mainly because of ______.