INTRODUCTION
Ethical hacking & ethical hacker are terms used to describe hacking performed by a company or individual to help identify potential threats on a computer or network. An ethical hacker attempts to bypass system security & search for any weak points that could be exploited by malicious hackers. This information is then used by the organization to improve the system security, in an effort to minimize or eliminate any potential attacks.
For hacking to be deemed ethical, the hacker must obey the following rules:
• Expressed (often written) permission to probe the network & attempt to identify potential security risks.
• You respect the individual 's or company 's privacy.
…show more content…
In reality, there’s often a gray area. A gray-hat hacker falls somewhere between a black hat & a white hat. A gray hat doesn’t work for their own personal gain or to cause carnage, but they may technically commit crimes & do arguably unethical things.For example, a black hat hacker would compromise a computer system without permission, stealing the data inside for their own personal gain or vandalizing the system. A white-hat hacker would ask for permission before testing the system’s security & alert the organization after compromising it. A gray-hat hacker might attempt to compromise a computer system without permission, informing the organization after the fact & allowing them to fix the problem. While the gray-hat hacker didn’t use their access for bad purposes, they compromised a security system without permission, which is …show more content…
An IP address serves two principal functions; host or network interface identification & location addressing. Its role has been characterized as follows: A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there.The designers of the Internet Protocol defined an IP address as a 32-bit number & this system, known as Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is still in use today. However, because of the growth of the Internet & the predicted depletion of available addresses, a new version of IP (IPv6), using 128 bits for the address, was developed in 1995. IPv6 was standardized as RFC 2460 in 1998, & its deployment has been ongoing since the
Hackers are people who are getting into our computer systems, destroying our personal property and stealing our information. Years ago, a hacker was a person who was capable of creating elegant and or unusual uses of technology. These days, a hacker refers to a person who attempts to penetrate security systems on remote computers (Hackers 2). Not only are computer hackers causing many problems for businesses, they are also causing many problems for the average person. Hackers get in personal information and get a hold of credit card numbers, various banking accounts and financial information, and just about anything else they want to know about you. They are going to get it whether you like it or not.
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.
IPv4 is the original internet addressing system. It is a protocol which was used on packet-switched networks. Delivery model is how it operates at its best without a guaranteed avoidance of duplicate in delivery or assurance of proper sequencing. Some aspects include data integrity which is mostly addressed by TCP. IPV4 uses binary notation to sort at time IP address that consist of 32 bits. It is a practice to convert the 32 bits of an IPv4 address into four 8 bit known as octets. With each octet converted to a decimal number (base 10) from (0–255) and parted by a period developed a format called dotted decimal notation. IPv4 has a category of address class types: Class A, B, C, D and E. The class A addresses are used for big networks and always start with zero bits. Each Class A address network can hold up as many as 16,777,216 hosts.
The Ted Talk presented by Catherine Bracy took the word hacking to another level. A new way of looking at a hacker. A hacker meaning much more than a teen behind a computer trying to steal information. The points she brought out is that reaching out to the people can get things done and strengthen relationships between people and an organization and through that relationship both parties are more stable and content. Bracy expressed her experiences with hackers in a government and citizen view, but this can also be applied to personal and
IP – The Internet Protocol (IP) - is the method or protocol by which data is sent from one computer to another on the Internet. Each computer (known as a host) on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identifies it from all other computers on the Internet.
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.
ates another's privacy. Violation of ones personal privacy, via computers, may in part be due to the incomplete understanding of responsibility on the part of those involved. Is it a management or a technical concern?
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.
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.
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
According to Wikipedia (2013b), hacker is someone who attack and seek into a computer system or network. They may motivated by different kinds of reason such as profit, to protest, to challenge a system, to grab information, etc. There are 3 types of hacker which can be classified into white hat, black hat, and grey hat. White hat hacker breaks the computer security for non-malicious reasons where they are actually to test their own security system. Black hat hacker violates the computer ethics and hacks system for their personal profit. Grey hacker hacks the computer system with the purpose of notifying the administrative of that system has a weak security system and provide them a better solution with a charge (Wikipedia, 2013b).
In my opinion, ethics give people free will to make right choices. People have free will to make choices that are governed with responsibility, accountability, and liability. We have a responsibility to perform in an ethical manner and be accountable for our choices or actions. Regardless of the circumstances and choices we make, there are consequences if we make the wrong choice. The question of whether an action or choice is ethical or not is fundamentally based on whether something is right or wrong. From an ethical standpoint, unethical choices and risky behavior can lead to increased liabilities. The liabilities result in the loss or damage sustained by a company or other party as result of an unethical and sometimes illegal decision. Although we exercise free will on a continuous basis, we are governed by the decisions we make and my belief is that the decisions we make daily do not just affect us. These decisions affect other people, such as family, friends, coworkers, instructors, neighbors, etc. The most prominent example of ethics can be recognized in the field of technology based on the growing amount of rapidly changing legislation and acts that under consideration in order to protect people from unethical practices.
The issue with tackling the ethical hacker scenario is that the event is almost entirely action based. There is no end to give meaning to the action and there is no finalized result or indication that it impacted happiness, which many ethical theories depend on. Namely consequentialism, utilitarianism and ethical egotism require an end result in one form or another. There is also no purpose in committing the hackings which makes applying moral theories that deal with motivation and intent, ethical egotism and aspects of virtue ethics, increasingly more difficult to do effectively. Therefore moral theories that apply almost exclusively to the action itself will be utilized in this argument.
An ethical hacker is usually employed by an organization who trusts him or her to attempt to penetrate networks and/or computer systems, using the same methods as a hacker, for the purpose of finding and fixing computer security vulnerabilities. Unauthorized hacking (i.e., gaining access to computer systems without prior authorization from the owner) is a crime in most countries, but penetration testing done by request of the owner of the victim system(s) or network(s) is not.
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.