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Saint Mitnick, Father of the Christmas Attack
Patron of TCP sequence numbers, trust relationships, and everyone who works even on Christmas Day.
Life
On 25 December 1994 the attack that bears Kevin Mitnick's name was launched against Tsutomu Shimomura's systems. By predicting TCP sequence numbers, then far too regular, the attacker impersonated a trusted machine and, silencing the real host, opened a connection in its name: the IP spoofing the textbooks had only theorised, put into practice on Christmas Day itself. The hunt that followed became legend.
Prayer
O Saint Mitnick, Father of the Christmas Attack, who guesses the next number before it is chosen, let our sequences be truly unpredictable. Amen.
How to celebrate
Celebrated by using random sequence numbers and trust relationships based on cryptography, not on the IP address.
At Christmas even the sequence numbers come as a surprise.