Why Do We Tolerate Hackers?
In reading the following column, the one question not asked there (or in any piece I’ve ever seen about these criminals) is why do they hack, and why we don’t come down like a brick firewall on them?
Security specialists said Saturday that hackers are taking increasing aim at iPhones and Macintosh computers as the hot-selling Apple devices gain popularity worldwide.
Hackers have historically focused devious efforts on computers using Windows operating systems because the Microsoft software has more than 90 percent of the global market, promising evil-doers a wealth of targets.
Okay, why do they do this and why aren’t they pursued more vigorously? Could it be because many of these hackers are spoiled, middle-to-upper class kids who’ll be protected by their parents should they be discovered, and they know it?
If I were causing billions of dollars to everyone from private individuals to corporations, I doubt very much that I’d be able to meet with my peers with near impunity, if not celebrity status.
For the second year in a row, reporters at the BlackHat and DefCon security conferences in Las Vegas have been kicked out for, well, hacking.
This year, three French reporters from Global Security Magazine, one of BlackHat’s sponsors, had their badges seized after they siphoned user names and passwords off the press room’s network from reporters for Cnet in San Francisco and the technology magazine eWeek in New York.
Their goal was to get victims’ credentials posted on the conferences’ “Wall of Sheep,” where people who access the wireless network at the conference without taking security precautions are publicly exposed.
If these people had any redeeming value, that would be one thing. Sure, they’re smart, but they’re also unrestrained, uncaring, narcissistic, and let’s be real: evil.
I’ve often written, and I’ll continue to do so, that these people should be guilty of a capital offense. When some punk, with no other reason than gaining notoriety, decides to invade people’s privacy for the purpose of personal enrichment, mischief, and/or destruction of property, thus costing all billions to reconstruct and protect themselves from future attack, a light sentence will not deter others from further hacking.
Hackers need be rounded up, prosecuted, and executed, period.
That’s right, I said it… again.
As more and more of our infrastructure is accessible via the Internet, our power grids, mass transit systems, banks, and one day our national security assets will be at the mercy of a bunch of deviant children (and organized criminals) who need to be taught the harsh lesson that we are damned tired of them fucking with our personal computer hardware, identities, and bank accounts just because they enjoy doing so.
August 10th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
You are confusing the term ‘hacker’ and ‘cracker’. But everyone in the media does this.
A hacker is guy or gal who delights in knowing how a system works. As a result they can’t help but try and make them work better and faster.
When I put a sniffer on a web server to see what kind and how much traffic it is sending to an application server, it’s because I want to know why the serves and applications are doing what they do – I’m hacking. When I craft a shell script to download my company’s phone book from it’s web site to my local computer so I can use quicker – I’m hacking.
A cracker is a guy or gal who breaks into computers for malicious reasons. A hacker might crack, but never with malicious intent.
Note that both groups share tools – but so do other professions. A mechanic uses a pry-bar to wedge open things, a thief uses one to break open a window.
August 10th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
If I wrote a piece called, “Why Do We Tolerate Crackers?” just what do think the response would be…?
August 10th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
*snort*chuckle*.
August 10th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Because supposedly we own everything?
bdunbar, I admit that for the longest time I made no distinction between the two camps but I have learned otherwise after getting to know someone who used to do cracking and is now completely on the hacking side of things.
And I do agree with the idea of harsh treatment for them. If not executions, then at the very least they should be treated just as if they broke into someone’s home.
August 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Wasn’t there a case several years ago where a, ahem, cracker (thanks bdunbar) was found shot to death in a German Park?
August 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I’m not as worried about the Defcon types. From those hackers that I’ve known over the years, they take their pleasure in “getting into a system” and then pointing out the security flaws to the IT and sys ops they hacked. This has lead to many security patches and fixes in operating systems that we all benefit from.
My fear is the crackers in places like Russia, Romania, Belaruse, etc. that steal information. Last week it was reported that a ring of these crackers stoled over 40 Million credit card numbers and info. The good guy hackers are the ones that tracked them down.
August 10th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
It is actually part and parcel of the design.
The hackers break in and show where the holes are, thus they can be plugged.
Presumably there will be a day when there will be no more such holes.
The CERT exists for this very reason.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I couldn’t disagree more this time, Bob. Like lpswampy said, it’s not the punk kids with too much time on their hands you need to worry about, it’s the grown men overseas who get rich doing it. The former are just pranksters and that hardly merits the death penalty.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Those kids grow up.
I guess we show them that as long as they don’t do any real damage, we’ll give ‘em a pass.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Well, I certainly am in agreement that nobody should get a pass for exhibiting antisocial behavior.
That long and growing list of hackers who end up getting hired as security experts notwithstanding.
I hacked phones in high school, using hammond organ tones and the famous Cap’n Crunch whistle until I realized that having perfect pitch meant one could also just whistle ‘em up once you learned to whistle one tone while humming another, also learned how to phone Central Offices in other cities and get open international lines, but I outgrew the passion after turnin’ 18 — and knowing full well that a black guy would be viewed as public enemy number one and the white kids got the pass. You know the drill.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:36 am
As has been stated, there’s a difference. The information world was entirely built by hackers. A hacker can be likened to a mechanic that tries different things with engines to see if there can be improvements, etc. Just like with any group, there’s always the bad apples. Sure there should be higher penalties for the bad ones, but capital punishment may be a bit much. We’re still trying to get that for pedophiles.