Hacking

Hacking

Describe a negative aspect of ICT’s impact on the information society. Describe how ICT has brought this about and what society is has done in response to it.

Abstract

Hacking has been and still disease different societies suffer from. The essay aims to provide the reader with knowledge regarding the effects hacking caused to our society, and how the society responded and tried to solve or minimize those effects.

Different issues regarding hacking are discussed, such as the motivations that were behind guiding hackers who were at first computer professional to perform unauthorized activities, at the same time a discussion about the types of attacks can be found.

The society response to hacking attacks lacks till this moment the ability to stop or completely prevent attacks from happening because as long as security tools are developed, more sophisticated hacking attacks are invented. That’s why we should start to think about hacker’s psychology as the main way to prevent and stop attacks by understanding their needs or desires.

Introduction

The Oxford English Dictionary defines hacking as “cut or chop roughly; mangle: cut (one’s way)”… to its present definition as “gain unauthorized access (to data in a computer)”. Banks (1997:11) defines hacking as “something that boring mainframe computer operators did to improve performance and battle boredom.” Here banks focuses on boredom as the reason of hacking. A more technical definition of hacking according to Digital Guards data base (2001) is “unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network.” Darlington (2001) believes hacking is not limited to accessing data or information but also includes an attack on the privacy of all people. Almost all different opinions agree on the illegality of hacking.

On the other hand the word hacker is the agent of hack or hacking and it was defined as a person who enjoys accessing files whether for fun, imposing power or the interest related to the accessed files or data according to Taylor (1999). While Marotta (in Taylor, 1993) has a negative view of the hacker as a data lord, a barbarian who takes what he wants. Himanen (2001) defines hacker as any person who performs illegal actions whether they were related to computer or not which means the usage of a device apart from its functionality. Seems hacking according to Himanen is related to any illegal or unauthorized action. Seebach (1999) finds hacker as a person who feels delighted and full of joy when being able to access a system and break the security utilities but Himanen (2001) doesn’t consider hacker as a thief.