The Exponential Growth of Hacking in Modern America Most people think hacking is a 21st century art, but in reality it has been around for a little more than a century. (Trigaux 1) Hacking has been relished by the American people as an act of terror when in actuality most hackers stand for the rights and liberties of the people. (Trigaux 2) There is several different types of hackers: The Black Hat, The White Hat, and The Grey Hat each designed with different morals and ethics. (Sterling 1) The “Black Hat” hackers portray the stereotypical identity that the American people are afraid of. (Moore 1) They normally hack for a personal gain or to intentionally place malicious software. (Moore 2) Following that we have a “White Hat” hacker who is …show more content…
the exact opposite of a “Black Hat” these hackers try to hack into things to test for vulnerable points in the software in theory they are the most ethical form of hackers. (Wilhelm 1) The clash of the two forms gives you a “Grey Hat” which uses his/her ability to hack into things to find holes in software or to get media to the world not a certain group. (Moore 3) Among most Grey or White Hat hackers they consider a Black Hat a cracker not a hacker. (Raymond 1) Hacking is an understanding of computing and used to find and fix holes in software or to release data to the public while as Cracking is just breaking into a locked software with harmful intent. (Raymond 2) History Behind Hacking The earliest forms of modern day hacking began to become something around the 1960’s when universities like University of Massachusetts (MIT) began a program called the Artificial Intelligence Lab where students started early stages of hacking by pushing software beyond their intended purposes.
(Trigaux 3) A gentlemen who goes by “Captain Crunch” a.k.a John Draper was known for the first person to gain access to an open phone line, he could call anywhere in the world with his discovery. (Trigaux 4) John Draper used a whistle, which he got in a box of cereal, to blow into the payphone which would grant him access to an open line this led to multiple arrest for tampering. (Trigaux 5) Due to John Draper’s discovery he gained a lot of copycats who tried to improve upon his work like two gentlemen known as “Berkeley Blue” and “Oak Toebark” who created “Blue Boxes” which hacked the phone systems. (Trigaux 6) These two gentlemen “Oak Toebark” a.k.a Steve Wozniak “Berkeley Blue” a.k.a Steve Jobs later formed the Homebrew Computer Club and Apple Inc. (Trigaux 7) During the early 1980’s the government made there first large scale raid on a group in Milwaukee who was responsible for several computer break-ins of many different things spanning from cancer centers to national laboratories. (Trigaux
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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.
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).
The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier by Bruce Sterling is a book that focuses on the events that occurred on and led up to the AT&T long-distance telephone switching system crashing on January 15, 1990. Not only was this event rare and unheard of it took place in a time when few people knew what was exactly going on and how to fix the problem. There were a lot of controversies about the events that led up to this event and the events that followed because not only did it happen on Martin Luther King Day, but few knew what the situation truly entailed. There was fear, skepticism, disbelief and worry surrounding the people that were involved and all of the issues that it incorporated. After these events took place the police began to crackdown on the law enforcement on hackers and other computer based law breakers. The story of the Hacker Crackdown is technological, sub cultural, criminal, and legal. There were many raids that took place and it became a symbolic debate between fighting serious computer crime and protecting the civil liberties of those involved.
1. “Captain Crunch”—1972,:Capt.Crunch” aka John Draper, realized that by blowing the whistle that came in Capt.Crunch cereal boxes, he could replicate the tones necessary to place free long distance phone calls. He spent some time on probation and in prison, and then went to work with Apple
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,
Kevin David Mitnick was born in Los Angeles on august 6, 1963 and he attended James Monroe high school in L.A. He was a hacker, phreaker and social engineer, who was the world’s most wanted computer criminal in 90’s, He was charged for many criminal activities forfraud and computer hacking into many top companies and stealing their confidential data. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, arrested Kevin Mitnick on February 15, 1995. He spent nearly five years in a federal prison for the charges. He is now a computer security consultant, author, and an ethical hacker, who started a computer security company called “Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC” and getting paid by the companies for ethical hacking.
Kevin Mitnick was born in 1963 in Los Angeles California. His parents divorced when he was young so he had a lonely life while his mother worked as a waitress to support them. He was unpopular until he discovered his aptitude for computer programming. His “career” began as a teenager when he learned to get free bus tickets, then progressed to a telephone phreaker, and ultimately to a notorious and elusive computer hacker.
In the garage of a neighbor Steve Wozniak created what would be called the cream soda computer. Named that after all the cream soda he drank while building it. While building it he met a man named Steve Jobs. Although the computer went up in smoke during a test the basic groundwork was laid for a machine that would change the world was set and a friendship that would turn into a new industry. After the introduction of the Altair an organization sprang up of hobbyist and amateurs. It was the Homebrew Computer Club and of course Steve Wozniak went to the meetings and rarely if ever missed one of them. It seemed the Altair used a costly microprocessor, the Intel 8080, to do its thinking. Since Woz couldn't afford the 179 dollars per chip he jumped at the offer Hewlett Packard offered its employees.
The case of Shawn Carpenter is almost indistinguishable to the case of Clifford Stoll. In 1986, Stoll was employed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Department of Energy as the system administrator. A slight mistake in accounting forced him to investigate further. According to Gawn, (1990) Stoll used non-ethical procedures to gain the information, which helped him to identify the hacker as Markus Hess.
Hacking was a term established in the 1960s. This word is the concept of unauthorised intrusion of a computer or network with malicious intentions behind them. This includes any technical effort of manipulating or damaging the normal behaviour of network connections/systems or stealing information. In this generation, hacking has become evidently significant and the debate of hacking being considered ethical or unethical arises. Therefore, will hacking ever be justified? The justification (reasonableness) of hacking has become a disputation of mixed opinions and emotions amongst society. These opinions range from hacking being considered immoral due to it being illegal activity and the vast negative impact it has on people. This includes the affirmative opinions on hacking; such as hacking being considered ethical due to the “white hat” hackers.
Gates and Allen soon got many opportunities to prove their computer skills. In 1972, they started their own company called 'Traf-O-Data.' They developed a portable computer that allowed them t...
In general, hacking or more specifically cracking is not justifiable due to the negative connotations associated with the term. Hackers are generally categorized into three categories, white hat, black or grey hat (Arnone, 2005). White hats are personnel that are often employed to find holes, penetrate or exploit a security system so the company can take corrective actions. Black hats are typically associated will malicious activity (cracking) such as developing and deploying viruses, worms, theft or damaging a system. The gray hats are somewhere in between the white and the gray hats. Arnone discusses how the federal government is utilizing hackers to test their own security measures and learn how to secure their systems by understanding how hackers operate and gain entry into network systems (Arnone, 2005). The white hat hacker has proven value by showing a company where their security vulnerabilities lie. White hackers are also in demand. They are hired by consultants for many Fortune 500 companies to find external and internal weaknesses and report them in order for those holes to be closed (Wiles, 2008).
Black hats – These are unethical hackers who will destroy and damage the security environment with their criminal acts and make the environment unreliable
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..