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Impact of the Internet on society
Impact of the Internet on society
Impact of the Internet on society
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Hackers and the Internet
Internet Security covers a broad list of topics. I have chosen to cover hackers and their history. I will go through who hackers are and how we define hackers. I will also cover the history of how hackers got started. This was a very interesting topic and may surprise a lot of people who have had misconceptions of what hackers do due to how the are covered by the media.
In the 1960’s at MIT a group of curious students, members of the Tech Model Railroad Club, decided to hack into the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. At this time hackers were encouraged to explore and were not considered malicious like the hackers the media portrays today. These groups of students were allowed access to the MIT AI Lab by the lab’s director Marvin Minsky.
In the 1970’s a trend started with phone hacking. Phreaks exploit phone systems to make free long distance calls. One famous phreak is John Draper, also known as “Captain Crunch”, made long distance calls for free by blowing a certain tone in a telephone. This tone opened a line on the phone system and he was able to make long distance calls for free. Two names that everyone is familiar with are Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; these two gentlemen founded Apple Computer. However, what a lot of people did not know is that they were members of Homebrew Computer Club. While being members of this club they began making “blue boxes”, which are devices used to help phreaks access phone systems. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had handles that they were known by and they were “Berkley Blue” and “Oak Toebark”.
By the late 1980’s computer hacking had grown so much that a magazine was formed called 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. This magazine shares tips on phone and computer hacking. The government responds to this growth by passing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and forming the Computer Emergency Response Team. This gives the government more authority in tracking wily hackers. This about the same time that the Media did a lot of coverage on Kevin Mitnik, a well known computer hacker who was convicted of stealing software and was sentenced to one year in prison.
By the 1990 the instances were computers were hacked grew exponentially.
Hacking has two primary definitions; the first refers to the enthusiastic and skilful use of computers to solve problems (Techterms, 2013); the second, to “gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). In the context of this essay the second definition is more appropriate and will be the meaning inferred throughout. This definition also more closely aligns with legal terminology used in the UK when describing the hacking of computers. The Computer Misuse Act (1990) introduced three criminal offenses:
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).
Essentially, just think about what is controlled by computer systems, virtually everything. By programming a telephone voicemail to repeat the word yes over and over again, a hacker has beaten the system. The hackers of the 1990's are increasingly becoming more organized, very clear in what they're looking for and very, very sophisticated in their methods of attack.. As hackers have become more sophisticated and more destructive, governments, phone companies and businesses are struggling to defend themselves. Phone Fraud In North America, the telecommunications industry estimates long distance fraud costs five hundred million perhaps up to a billion every year, the exact the exact figures are hard to be sure of, but in North America alone phone fraud committed by computer hackers costs three, four maybe even up to five billion dollars every year.
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.
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,
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.
Computer hackers in today's world are becoming more intelligent. They are realizing that people are constantly developing more hack-proof systems. This presents the hackers with a bigger challenge and a bigger thrill. The government is realizing this and is working on making harsher laws to, hopefully, scare the potential hackers. With the increase in hacking and hacker intelligence, governmental regulation of cyberspace hasn't abolished the fact that it's nearly impossible to bring a hacker to justice.
"During a three-day period in February 2000, some of the most high-profile sites on the World Wide Web were temporarily knocked out of service. " (Issues and Controversy) This quote is one of the many that show the down side to hacking. A hacker is a person who takes pleasure in understanding the internal workings of a system. This does not necessarily classify hackers as bad.
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...
In the late 1970s, hackers were people who enjoyed learning the details of computer systems. Today, hackers (or crackers) refer to people who break into computer systems.
Kevin David Mitnick is a computer hacker and an American Computer Security Consultant. He was bought up in Los Angeles in the late 1970’s, this was the time when the personal computer industry was exploding. He was from a lower middle class family with his parents divorced at a very young age and was mainly a loner and an underachiever. He learnt and discovered the power to control over the telephone networks.
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..
Harvey, Brian."Computer Hacking and Ethics." Ed. Paul Goodman, P.G. Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. U of California, Berkeley, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2014.
To be able to understand cybercrimes we need to know where it started. It all started with the birth of the internet. In the late 1960s, one of the authors (HMD) was a graduate student at MIT. His research at MIT’s project MAC (now the Laboratory for computer – the home of the World Wide Web Consortium) was funded by APRA – the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. Later on APRA proceeded to implement the APRANET, which even...
In the early days of hacking the problem wasn’t taken very seriously, people were just mucking around, rather than as something, which could cause serious loss or problems to companies, organisations and others. With new things in technologies the issue has become more serious and legislation was introduced stop these three things: 1. Unauthorised access to computer material. 2. Unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences.