"The Ethical and Unethical Behavior of Hacking"
by
Jessa C. Butiu
Liezel Mopal
Lawrence Dave Awitan
Hacking is one of the most extremely
interesting activities in past and in our present generation. It is an art generally
performed by deft hands and quick minds. As our modern world become more and
more reliant on computers, hacking industry is greatly rising. The term Hacking
was originated in 1990’s that means practice on changing the features of a system
and breaking into computer. Hacking can be done in a different ways just like
gaining access to someone’s home can be done in a variety of ways.
Can you imagine how a person becomes
multi-billionaire in just a few minutes? Perhaps, Hacking in itself is really amazing. But many people says
that hacking is an illegal activity. As for John Gragson “Illegal hacking
activities are unauthorised access to computer systems and "intellectual
property" violations. The former involves getting into someone else's
account or computer, by impersonation, by stealing the password, or by
bypassing the login information somehow, without either consent or authority.
Even turning on a non-password-protected computer could meet this definition if
there's no consent or justification.” As support to what Gragson said about
illegal hacking, according to the article of Rewop Sri he implies that Hacking
is also a crime in our society that needs a
punishment.
Opposed to this, Clare Edwards said that, “Hacking
isn't necessarily a criminal activity, however. A computer hacker can simply be
someone who knows how to circumvent the limitations of a device or a piece of
software. Ethical hackers often break into computer systems -- with permission
-- to find vulnerabilities and improve security. Hacking is a crime when the
perpetrators access systems without the owner's permission.” Perhaps that means
being a good or a bad hacker is a choice to be taken.
Clearly, it means that there are different
types of hackers in our society. Geeks
and tech writers often refer to “black hat,” “white hat,” and “grey hat”
hackers. These terms define different groups of hackers based on their behaviour.
White hat hackers attempt to hack for good reasons, black hat hackers attempt
to hack for malicious reasons, and grey hat hackers attempt to attack for both
good and bad reasons.
The Black-hats, White-Hats and Grey-Hats. Black-Hats
hackers, or simply “black hats,” are the type of hacker the popular media seems
to focus on. Black-hat hackers violate
computer security for personal gain (such as stealing credit card numbers or
harvesting personal data for sale to identity thieves) or for pure
maliciousness .Black hats fit the widely-held stereotype that hackers are
criminals performing illegal activities for personal gain and attacking others.
They’re the computer criminals.
Opposite to Black-Hats hackers, White-Hats
hackers are the “ethical hackers,” experts in compromising computer security
systems who use their abilities for good, ethical, and legal purposes rather
than bad and criminal purposes.
White-hat hacker uses their
knowledge of computer security systems to compromise the organization’s
systems. However, instead of using their access to steal from the organization
or vandalize its systems, the white-hat hacker reports back to the organization
and inform them of how they gained access, allowing the organization to improve
their defences. So generally white-hats hackers are the good hackers. They are
the reason why there are people that still believes that hacking is an legal
activity.
Lastly, the Grey-Hats hackers. A grey-hat hacker falls somewhere between a
black hat and a white hat. They sometimes violate laws and do crimes but also
do the ethical standards on hacking. Grey hat acts without malicious intent.
The goal of a grey hat is to improve system and network security.
There are famous hackers in the world that
made their own names. One of them is Jonathan James. He was known as “c0mrade”
on the Internet. He became famous in the world of hacking because he was convicted
and sent to prison for hacking in the United States–all while he was still a
minor. At only fifteen years of age, he managed to hack into a number of
networks. Bell South, Miami-Dade, the U.S. Department
of Defence, and NASA, those are the networks he manage to hacked and yes NASA
was one of them, he downloaded enough source code to learn how the
International Space Station worked. But then at the end, Jonathan James
committed suicide because he was investigated by NASA and he believes he’ll be
convicted of that crime.
Also, the famous Kevin Mitnick’s journey as a
computer hacker has been so interesting and compelling that the U.S. Department
of Justice called him the “most wanted computer criminal in U.S. history.” Kevin Mitnick’s story is quite similar to any Hollywood
Hacking Movie. At the time of his arrest, he was the most wanted person in
relation to computer crimes. After serving a year in prison for hacking into
the Digital Equipment Corporation’s network, he was let out for 3 years of
supervised release. Near the end of that period, however, he fled and went on a
2.5-year hacking spree that involved breaching the national defence warning
system and stealing corporate secrets. Mitnick was eventually caught and
convicted, ending with a 5-year prison sentence. After serving those years
fully, he became a consultant and public speaker for computer security. He now
runs Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC. .
As well as James and Mitnick, Albert Gonzalez
was also one of the famous hackers in hacking industry. Albert Gonzalez paved
his way to Internet fame when he collected over 170 million credit card and ATM
card numbers over a period of 2 years. Yep. That’s equal to a little over half
the population of the United States. Albert Gonzales was known for having a
lavish lifestyle, staying for days in fancy hotel rooms and throwing a $75,000
birthday party. He was also the leader of his own hacker group “Shadow Crew”. This
group would go on to steal 1.5 million credit card numbers and sell them online
for profit. Shadow Crew also fabricated fraudulent passports, health insurance
cards, and birth certificates for identity theft crimes totalling $4.3 million
stolen. From mid-2005 to the ending of 2007 Gonzales managed to hack into the
computer systems of the TJX group of retailer’s servers and steal over 45
million card details. He and his crew were able to pull it off by using
unsecured Wi-Fi connections along U.S. Gonzales was finally arrested in 2008
and is currently serving a prison term, which is due to end in 2025.
In addition, Kevin Poulsen, also known as
“Dark Dante,” gained his fifteen minutes of fame by utilizing his intricate
knowledge of telephone systems.
Kevin Poulsen has two
attributes that make him stand out from the rest of the hackers. He was the
first American who was made to serve an internet and computer ban after being
released from prison and was had gained a specialty in hacking only through
telephone lines. He first gained attention when he hacked into an L.A. radio
network so that he could be the 102nd caller and would win a new Porsche. He
had also reactivated all old Yellow Page escort service phone numbers so that
his friend could operate a virtual escort service. When his name once came up
in a TV show called Unsolved Mysteries, the 1-800 numbers of the TV station
mysteriously crashed. He then earned his way onto the FBI’s wanted list when he
hacked into federal systems and stole wiretap information. Funny enough, he was
later captured in a supermarket and sentenced to 51 months in prison, as well
paying $56,000 in restitution. Like Kevin Mitnick, Poulsen changed his ways
after being released from prison. He began working as a journalist and is now a
senior editor for Wired News.
Do you know that there are many Benefits of
hacking? The first reason people should be thankful
for hackers are that not all hackers are fixated on breaking into your computer
and stealing your data. Some of them are the amazing programmers that help a
country to become more powerful. Hacking can allow nations to monitor/spy on
other nations. They can also improve the security of a company. Hacking can allow for the revelation of bugs and
weaknesses in particular software, which could in turn be used to make the
software even stronger. Those are just some benefits that we can get in
hacking.
Some of us think that hacking is an illegal
activity, but it might not be illegal to hack if you do hacking without
malicious intent. In fact, sometimes hacking becomes a solution or sometimes
hackers done some amazing things, for example Mark Zuckerberg the founder of
Facebook. He is a self-professed hacker but he uses his intelligence in hacking
to do better things. Keep in mind that there are many types of hackers, and you
cannot judge all of them based on what a single one does. It is our choice to
make if we consider hacking as an illegal or legal action.
Outline:
I. What is Hacking?
A. History of Hacking
B. How Hacking Works?
II. Is Hacking
Illegal?
A.
When
does Hacking become Illegal?
III. Legal Hacking
IV. Types of Hackers
A. Black Hackers
B. White Hackers
C. Grey Hackers
V. Famous Hackers in the World
A. Jonathan James
B. Kevin Mitnick
C. Albert Gonzalez
D. Kevin Poulsen
VI. Benefits of Hacking
References and Sites:
1.Palmer,C.C.,2001. IBM SYSTEMS
JOURNAL,VOL 40, NO 3, .New York City. IBM Global Services.
2.Hoffman,C.,2013. http://www.howtogeek.com/157460/hacker-hat-colors-explained-black-hats- white-hats-and-gray-hats/
3.Lee,J.2012.
5 The World’s Most Famous Hackers &
What Happened to Them. U.S.: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-of-the-worlds-most-famous-hackers-what-happened-to-them/
4.Sweigart,A.,2013.
“Hacking Secret Ciphers with Python”. United
States.
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