Why Hackers Do The Things They Do?
Hackers. You know them as gangly kids with radiation tans caused by too many late nights in front of a computer screen. Evil beings who have the power to wipe out your credit rating, cancel your cable TV, raise your insurance premiums, and raid your social security pension. Individuals who always avert their eyes and mumble under their breath about black helicopters and CIA transmissions. Paranoid, social deviants who could start World War III from the privacy of their bedrooms. Or so the mainstream media would have you believe.
In reality, most hackers are ordinary people with a great deal of curiosity, above-average skills with a computer, a good understanding of human nature, and plenty of time to kill. Hackers have no distinguishing characteristics. Your next-door neighbor could be a hacker, as could your niece or nephew, one of your co-workers, or even the kid who serves you coffee in the morning. Not all hackers are dangerous and out to destroy business or damage lives. The view of the general public toward hackers is mixed. A recent CNN-poll shows 33% of respondents labeling hackers as "useful," 17% seeing them "as a menace," and the majority (45%) seeing hackers as "both" useful and a menace (CNN, 1999).
Why do hackers go through all the trouble to do what they do? Most people in society do not spend the time to break into computer systems. It does not have much appeal to them. Why then do certain people spend so much of their time and energy accomplishing these feats of technological wizardry? What is the cause that turns those mostly above-average intelligent people to pursue a criminal career, and destroy their otherwise very successful careers? Why do they commit these computer related crimes as an obsession?
There are probably as many answers to that question as there are hackers (maybe more). It is important to realize that these people are individuals with their own hopes, fears, desires, and everything else that comes with being human. However, there are general patterns to the motivation behind the computer hacker's drive to manipulate technology. The problem of hacker motivation is probably one of the more interesting questions concerning this sub-culture (Hacker-Bible, 1995).
Hackers rarely use information to gain wealth. This is not considered socially acceptable. C...
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... models from the legitimate information security community.
While it is wrong to stereotype hackers as evil people with malicious criminal intentions, they cannot be stereotyped as compassionate freedom fighters as the hackers like to see themselves. Hackers must also realize that the actions of criminals will always reflect poorly on the hacker community as a whole, until the hacker community tries to police itself, which will never happen. Their actions are by definition, criminal. They can suffer consequences, which include being criminally prosecuted and hated by the information security community.
The information security profession must also be more visible in a way that gets children, before the hacker community gets them. Hacking can be very exciting for a teenager who can be considered a hero by others. Somehow the profession must get together to teach parents and schools that they must teach their children about hacking, before somebody else does.
Work Cited:
Chaos Computer Club (January 05, 1995) Hacker-Bible
The New Hacker’s Dictionary (Online Edition, 1st edition) World Wide Web: http://www.outpost9.com/reference/jargon/jargon_toc.html SUBMITTED BY: Bzer118
When you think of hackers, you probably think of someone who is a little older, someone who's profession is working with computers.
Although, hackers can damage a person psychologically, emotionally, and financially, hacking almost never leads to direct physical violence. I believe that hacking is one of those unique tools of life that is considered good or bad depending on what it is being used for. I believe that anything that falls into the right hands and is used for a genuine purpose, can help progress society in a positive light even if the thing in question is deemed bad. For instance, in June of 2013, Edward Snowden, an American computer professional, leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to the mainstream media in Hong Kong by using the helpfulness social engineering approach, which help him obtain confidential information without physically taken it from the person. Although this was detrimental for the US government’s reputation, simultaneously it was an event that lead to the improvement of security. In addition, if the US had hired Edward Snowden that could use his wrong doing for a right cause. We all have our thoughts about what is wrong and right, but in reality those who are in power of wealth determine what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable. With this in mind, I state the claim that from a creativity aspect no matter whether a product is deemed good or bad,
ZHENGCHUAN, XU, HU QING, and ZHANG CHENGHONG. "Why Computer Talents Become Computer Hackers." Communications Of The ACM 56.4 (2013): 64-74. Academic Search Premier. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
During the sixties Americans saw the rise of the counterculture. The counterculture, which was a group of movements focused on achieving personal and cultural liberation, was embraced by the decade’s young Americans. Because many Americans were members of the different movements in the counterculture, the counterculture influenced American society. As a result of the achievements the counterculture movements made, the United States in the 1960s became a more open, more tolerant, and freer country.
The documentary Rise of the Hackers, focuses on the rising criminal use of hacking and how it is effecting multiple areas of technology. The documentary describes simple and complicated situations concerning hacking, but there still questions that must be answered when it comes to hacking and crime. The main question is in trying to determine why a person would choose to commit computer hacking. There are various theories already present within the criminal justice system that may explain at a micro-level and macro-level. These theories would explain why offenders would commit the crimes, but it may not answer the full scope of the question. The Routine Activities Theory would help to explain why offenders offend, why victims are victimized,
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