Since the introduction of personal computers in the 1970’s, the art of computerhacking has grown along with changing roles of computers in society.
Computershave taken over our lives. People could not function without them; ourelectricity is run by computers, the government could not function withoutcomputers, and there are many others. Hackers are people who illegally gainaccess to, and sometimes tamper with, information in a computer system. Due torecent media coverage and corporate interest, hackers activities are now lookeddown on by society as criminal.
Despite the growing trend of hacking, verylittle research has been done on the hacking world and its culture. The image ofa computer hacker has grown from a harmless nerd into a vicious techno-criminal. In reality most hackers are not out to destroy the world. The hackers in today’ssociety are not bored teenagers. Imagine this, you are driving along the roadand suddenly you see something spectacular.
Now imagine that you are not allowedto deviate from your course to check it out. This is what a so-called”hacker” faces. Just imagine that you saw an injured person on the side ofthe road. In this analogy you are not allowed to help the injured person.
Ahacker is not allowed to explore like everyone else in the world. A hacker isnot allowed to help fix potential security holes. The term hacker can have manymeanings. The most visible to the public is the person pirating software, andbreaking into corporate networks and destroying information. This is the publicmisconception of a hacker.
Back in the Unix days, a hack was simply a quick anddirty way of doing something. In fact hackers are well educated people, In”Hackers intensify fears of industrial espionage,” Mark Gembickireports “the typical hacker used to be 14 to 16 years of age, white male,somewhat of an introvert . . .
However, this is no longer the case. . . Ourhacker profile . . .
[is that] the hackers are around 30-33, white male again,professional” (Drumheller). Many of the hacker’s today are probably thegrown-up fourteen to sixteen years old from the past. Except now they makeenough money to purchase expensive computer equipment. They are well educatedand have an interest in technology. The majority of the hackers of today arethirty years old and well educated, they are not all out to destroy computersystems and break into national security. Although hacking is a growing trend inour society, it is not one that is accepted in the United States or any othercountry for that matter.
Hacking is an international phenomenon that cuts acrossrace, gender, ethnic background, sex, and education level. Hackers have alwaysbeen considered different and have never been accepted in society. Hackers inthose days were basically just computer experts. Nowadays hacker means the samething as a cracker, a person who pirates software, and malicious hackers. Themedia, of course, never prints the good things hackers do. Most hackers providea service to companies, by letting the company know about security holes, beforea rival exploits it.
Most hackers want nothing more than to simply learn. Ahacker has an extreme thirst for knowledge, but not in the traditional subjects. Technology, and anything new interest hackers. In fact most security expertsstart out but learning and “hacking”. The bad view of hackers is notcompletely false. There are hackers out there that will do there best to harmany system hey can, national security documents the bad hackers as dangerous,they may gain access to classified information.
Patricia Irving, president of asmall business which creates biological and chemical defense technology, says”?Our technologies are being used for national security type purposes,and the U. S. government has a concern about what might be happening’ incountries that might not be friendly toward the United States or with terroristgroups inside and outside of this country”. Both governments and companiesare forced to pay large amounts of money to try and make their sites safe andimpossible for hackers to break into.
However most hackers are not going to harma government or business. Genuine hackers hack only for the joy of knowledge. Arush, like no other, is felt after finally gaining access into a site or acomputer. They feel most information should be free. They do not look at hackingas stealing. They see hacking as borrowing information.
However the good hackersdo understand the rights of privacy and the good hackers do not mess withpeoples private matters. Hackers believe knowledge is power. Therefor they arein the constant pursuit of power. Hackers are a growing trend, or problem, whichever way one sees it. This underground culture will not disappear anytime soon. In fect its constantly growing as the number of users on the internet keesp onincreasing, this is*a href=http://www.
coainc. cjb. net/*(http://www. coainc. cjb. net/)*/ahref* just one site where a person is offerd introductions into hacking and tojoin a hacker group.
In short I will brifly describe the basic methods and ,present alilte of the FYI on hacking it self. Hackers may use a variety of waysto hack into a system. First if the hacker is experienced and smart the hackerwill use telnet to access a shell on another machine so that the risk of gettingcaught is lower than doing it using their ownsystem. (This is very complicated toexplain, the simplest way to put is the hacker sends a commend through theinternet to the server and teh server on which the telnet is located on executesthe command actions), the ways in which the hacker will break into the systemare: 1) Guess/cracking passwords. This is where the hacker takes guesses at thepassword or has a crackprogram to crack the password protecting the system. 2)Finding back doors is anotherway in which the hacker may get access to thesystem.
This is where the hacker tries to find flaws in the system they aretrying to enter. 3) One other way in which a hacker maytry to get into a systemis by using a program called a WORM. This program is speciallyprogrammed to suitthe need of the user. This programme continually tries to connect toa machine atover 100 times a second until eventually the system lets in and the wormexecutesits program. The program could be anything from getting password filestodeleting files depending on what it has been programmed to do. Regardingprotection The only way that you or a company can stop a Hacker is by not havingyour computer connected to the net.
This is the only sure fire way in which youcan stop a hacker entering yoursystem. This is mainly because hackers use aphone line to access the system. If it ispossible for one person to access thesystem then it is possible for a hacker to gainaccess to the system. One of themain problems is that major companies need to benetworked and accessible overthe net so that employees can do overdue work or sothat people can look upthings on that company. Also major companies network theiroffices so that theycan access data from different positions. One way which is used to try toprevent hackers gaining access is a program used by companies called aFirewall.
A Firewall is a program which stops other connections from differentservers to thefirewall server. This is very effective in stopping hackersentering the system. Tho this is not a fool proof way of stopping hackers as itcan be broken and hackers can get in. Though this is a very good way ofprotecting your system on the InterNet. Alitel bit on consequences, and hackingcases.
Some of the major hacks that have been committed have been done by youngteens aged betwean 14 and 18. These computer geniuses as they are known haveexpert knowledge on what they are doing and also know the consequences. Tho theconsequences do notreally enter there mind when they are doing it. This hackoccurred on February 10,1997, and again on February 14, 1997 Portuguese hackerslaunched a political attackon the web page of the Indonesian government,focusing on that country’s continued oppression of East Timor. The attack wasonline for about 3 hours from 7.
00 PM to10. 00 PM (Portuguese Time) at the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs,Republic of Indonesia. The hackers didnot delete or change anything. The said “We justhack pages”. Another majorhack that occurred was on April 1 1981 by a single user.
This hacker who wassituated in an east coast brokage house was interested in the stockmarket. SO hepurchased $100,000 worth of shares in the stock market. Then hehacked into thestock markets main computers and stole $80 million dollars. The hackerwaseventually caught although $53 million dollars was not recovered. OnWednesday,March 5 1997 The home page of the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration’swas recently hacked and the contents changed.
The group known asH4G1S. This groupof hackers managed to change the contents of the webpage Thehacking group changedthe webpage and left a little message for all. It said “Gr33t1ngs fr0m th3 m3mb3rs 0f H4G1S. Our mission is to continue where ourcolleagues the ILF left off. During the nextmonth, we the members of H4G1S, willbe launching an attack on corporate America. All who profit from the misuse ofthe InterNet will fall victim to our upcoming reign ofdigital terrorism.
Ourprivileged and highly skilled members will stop at nothing until ourpresence isfelt nationwide. Even your most sophisticated firewalls are useless. Wewilldemonstrate this in the upcoming weeks”. The homepage of the United StatesAir Forcewas recently hacked and the contents had been changed.
The webpage hadbeenchanged completely as the hackers had inserted pornographic pictures saying”this is what we are doing to you” and had under the image “screwingyou”. The hackers havechanged it and shown their views on the politicalsystem. One other major hack whichwas committed was by a 16 year old boy inEurope. This boy hacked into the British Airforce and downloaded confidentialinformation on Ballistic missiles. The boy hackedinto the site and down loadedthis information because he was interested and wanted toknow more about them. This boy was fined a sum of money.
In conclusion it can be saidthat hackers aresophisticated and very talented when it comes to the use of a computer. Hackingis a process of learning not following any manual. Hackers learn as they go anduse a method of trial and error. Most people who say they are hackers most ofthe timeare not.
Real hackers do not delete or destroy any information on thesystem they hack. Hackers hack because they love the thrill of getting into asystem that is supposablyunable to be entered. Overall hackers are smart andcause little damage to the system they enter. So hackers are not reallyterrorists in a way they they are portraid. As long as there is technology therewill be people wishing to know more about it and there will be people breakinginto files.
Never the less most hackers want nothing more than to find thebeauty in system, or network. To hackers vast networks, and the inside of afirewall that was meant to keep them out, are the most beautiful sights onEarth. In every aspect of life there are people who exploit others. Murders,robbers, or any other criminals come from every walk of life. Even hackers havesome, but like the general population, it is a small percentage. Most peoplewould call the whole Linux community hackers, because anyone who has theknowledge to run Unix must be a hacker.
This show what good hackers can do. Theentire Unix GNU community is run by hackers. They all contribute toward a freeoperating system. They all work out the bugs, and then distribute it for free. Hackers got tired of paying for an OS that did not work well. So they all workedtogether Today Linux is one of the fastest growing OS’s on the planet.
Manywould say that Linux is buggy simply because its free, but it’s made by thesame people who can get into any computer, or write any program to fit theirneeds. All Hackers are not good, but then again, all people are not good. In anycase, the hacker community as a whole, has done many things for end uses. Firstof all they help companies make there transactions securer, more on that can befound at *a href=http://www. netscapeworld. com/netscapeworld/nw-08-1997/nw-08-cybersleuth.
html*thisartical */a href*Second they help develop new code, and help work the bugs outof old code. And lastly, all hackers really want to do is learn. Even if itmeans “breaking in to” a computer. Most hackers break in simply to learn.
Very few will touch any data. A hackers goal is for the systems administator tonever even know that the hacker was in the system in the first place. TheHacker’s Manifesto by the Mentor, is a classic example of how hackers feelthat the rest of the world does not understand us. It shows how hackers wereonce shunned from society and created their own underground society. In fact2600 Magazine has been published since the early eighties. Many articles are inthis magazine about how hackers are merely misunderstood.
I will conclude thisessay with this most famous article: Hackers Manifesto By: +++The Mentor+++Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager Arrestedin Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after BankTampering”. . .
Damn kids. They’re all alike. But did you, in yourthree-piece psychology and 1950’s technobrain, Ever take a look behind the eyesof the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, What forces shaped him,what may have molded him? I am a hacker, enter my world. . . Mine is a world thatbegins with school.
. . I’m smarter than most of the other kids, This crap theyteach us bores me. . . Damn underachiever.
They’re all alike. I’m in junior highor high school. I’ve listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time How toreduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms. Smith, I didn’t show my work.
I did it in my head. . . ” Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike.
Imade a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It doeswhat I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it’s because I screwed it up.
Notbecause it doesn’t like me. . . Or feels threatened by me.
. Or thinks I’m a smartass. . Or doesn’t like teaching and shouldn’t be here.
. . Damn kid. All he does isplay games. They’re all alike. And then it happened.
. . a door opened to aworld. . .
Rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins,An electronic pulse is sent out, A refuge from the day-to-day incompetence issought. . . A board is found. “This is it.
. . this is where I belong. . .
“I know everyone here. . . even if I’ve never met him or her, Never talked to them,may never hear from them again.
. . I know you all. .
. Damn kid. Tying up the phoneline again. They’re all alike. . .
You bet your ass we’re all alike. . . We’ve beenspoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak. . .
The bits of meatthat you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We’ve beendominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something toteach found us willing pupils, But those few are like drops of water in thedesert. This is our world now.
. . the world of the electron and the switch, Thebeauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing, Without payingfor what could be dirt-cheap, If it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, And youcall us criminals. We explore. .
. and you call us criminals. We seek afterknowledge. . . and you call us criminals.
We exist without skin color, Withoutnationality, Without religious bias. . . And you call us criminals. You buildatomic bombs, You wage wars, You murder, Cheat, and lie to us, And try to makeus believe it’s for our own good, Yet we’re the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal.
My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what theysay and think, Not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you,Something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is mymanifesto. You may stop this individual, But you can’t stop us all.
. . After all,we’re all alike.
