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.
The use of hacking to identify weaknesses in computer security has become an increasingly controversial issue in recent years. Awareness of this issue is important, because our ever increasing reliance on technology means that breaches in computer security have the potential to have wide-ranging and devastating consequences to society, worldwide. This essay will begin by clearly defining the term ‘hacking’ and will examine the type of people who hack and for what reasons. There will then follow a discussion of the moral argument on hacking before examining a few brief examples. The essay will then conclude by arguing against the use of hacking as a means of identifying weaknesses in computer security.
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,
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.
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.
...difficult to try and tell someone that ethics and moral are important for an individual or our society. Hacktivism being a recent adaptation of computer hacking has spread through out the world consistently from years ago. Some are political activists trying to make a point and achieve some goals and getting through tot the people. Hacktivist show society what the new problems are in the world without permission of the law. Some show what could happen if there was a full on cyber terrorism placed against us. In the end, these actions that were used to only show what could happen have turned into being a message that shows us they are just as dangerous as anyone else. The fear people have of hackers is about the same as criminals on the street.
Last year, two Cloverdale teenagers pleaded guilty to federal charges. What did they do that the FBI raided their homes and seized their computers? They hacked into Pentagon computer systems. These two teenagers, Makaveli and TooShort, were also suspected of breaking into computers at universities, government agencies and military bases. This example and many others show the increase of hackers and their crimes over the years. In another story that is similar to the story about Makaveli and Too Short, from a BBC News story, Hackers target Nasa and Pentagon, an international group of computer hackers broke into Pentagon computer systems and also said they had stolen key software from Nasa. The group consisted of eight Americans, five British and two Russians. They called themselves the "Masters of Downloading." They were considering selling the information to international terrorist groups or foreign governments. The number of hacker related crimes seems to be increasing year by year. Theft on the internet is costing companies billions, and the high-tech industry is struggling to stop it. According to Michael Meyer's Crimes of the "Net", last year roughly $2 billion worth of software was stolen over the internet last year. Also that year, the leader of an international piracy ring operating out of Spain, pleaded guilty to a brand of fraud destined to become commonplace. According to U.S. investigators, they stole 140,000 telephone credit-card numbers. Hackers used the numbers to make a total of $140 million worth of long-distance phone calls. Now, the question is who is really at loss here. The answer is simple. Companies like GTE, AT &T, Bell Atlantic and MCI. Because of these hackers, those companies lost a lot of money. What actions must be taken to stop these theives? According to the hackers, they call what they are doing sharing. Hackers are criminals that steal from others to better themselves. They are leeches, feeding off other peoples' personal items. People have to become aware of the risk they face with hackers. Software and phone cards isn't the end of the stealing hackers. Everything from computer parts to flowers and teddy bears are at risk to hackers. With the increasing technology, the abuse is almost endless.
Hacking has been around since the birth of computers. When the term hacking was first used, its meaning was not that of how we think of it today. At the origins of computing, a hacker was considered to be just a "creative programmer (Baase, 2003)." Early forms of computer games as well as the beginnings of operating systems were discovered and created by these original hackers. These hackers plunged into systems as a way of an intellectual challenge and to aspire to gain knowledge (Baase, 2003). Kevin Mitnick believes he falls into this realm of hackers. Hackers in today's era are now looked upon as criminals who invade the privacy rights of individuals and have the ability to deliver worms/viruses. The differences are that hackers today have full intentions of delivering terrible viruses and worms. Mitnick was one of the most infamous hackers during the 1980's. He molded his hacking style around the stupidity of humans and his quest for intellectual knowledge. The ways in which he wiggled his way into computer systems extenuates many of the issues surrounding computer security and privacy.
From the computer stand point, a hacker is a person who wants " to gain access to a computer illegally." (Webster Dictionary). But that is only one part of the definition, but this is the definition most people associate hacking with. The other part of the definition is "to write computer programs for enjoyment." (Webster Dictionary). Most just classify these kinds of people as programmers, but truly, if you can make a program, you are a basic at hacking. That’s one reason why not all hacking is bad.
Hacking is strongly unjustified by individuals due to it being illegal activity. Laws relating to computer hacking vary depending on every region. However, there is a predominance of hacking being illegal in a majority of countries. Broadly speaking, it is illegal to hack into computer systems and networks since it involves accessing information with authorisation. This is a form of invasion of privacy and data breach, automatically making the activity unlawful. From ‘Computer Crime: American Hacking, federal police’, it is stated that computer intrusion, unauthorised modification and destruction of data comes with penalties under the state law. These range from class B misdemeanour (a fine) to class B felony (five years in prison). This validates that in most cases, due to the trespassing of computers and networks and data rupture, hacking is strongly considered as unvirtuous due to it being illegal
In Computer security terminology Hacker is a person or group of persons, who exploit, modify and identify weakness in a computer system or network. Hacker may be motivates of reasons such as profit, protest and challenge. based on attitude, belief, and goals hacker groups are categories such as
One of the most common Cyber Crimes is Hacking. The National Conference of State Legislatures defines Hacking as breaking into computer, frequently with intentions to alter or modify existing settings. Usually, hackers are harmless; they are experts in advanced systems. At the present time they concentrate on informative systems and communications. Hackers dominate programming and electronics to understand complex systems like mobile communication. They like breaking into computers just to let others know that they were there, but they do not modify or make any changes. Normally they are the ones who alert companies about errors in their commercial programs. It is common that skilled hacker get contract by important security company. Hacker
The term “hacker” has been in use since the early 1980’s due to mass media usage to describe computer criminals. The use of this term is vastly used by the general population and most are not aware that there are different meanings to the word. People within the computing community especially within the programming subculture emphasize the use of the term “crackers” for computer security intruders (cyber criminals). Early hackers rarely used their skills for financial gain as a motivation for their criminal behavior in that time cybercrime was infantile and largely seen as a practical joke or game by those who committed it. Bob Thomas created the first credited computer worm n...
The Art of exploring various security breaches is termed as Hacking.Computer Hackers have been around for so many years. Since the Internet became widely used in the World, We have started to hear more and more about hacking. Only a few Hackers, such as Kevin Mitnick, are well known.In a world of Black and White, it’s easy to describe the typical Hacker. A general outline of a typical Hacker is an Antisocial, Pimple-faced Teenage boy. But the Digital world has many types of Hackers.Hackers are human like the rest of us and are, therefore, unique individuals, so an exact profile is hard to outline.The best broad description of Hackers is that all Hackers aren’t equal. Each Hacker has Motives, Methods and Skills. But some general characteristics can help you understand them. Not all Hackers are Antisocial, PimplefacedTeenagers. Regardless, Hackers are curious about Knowing new things, Brave to take steps and they areoften very Sharp Minded..