Date: Sat, 12 Apr 97 07:17:52 -0500 (CDT) From: stretch5 <stretch5@mail.airmail.net> To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: The True Story Message-ID: <m0wG1kd-00005ZE@mail.airmail.net>
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This a paper that I wrote for my senior english class that I thought that you might be interested in reading. If you have any comments you can reach me at stretch5@airmail.net. :) ³Hackers² The True Story ( Who Are Hackers, Really !!! ) by stretch5 March 22, 1997 When one thinks of computer crimes, one thinks of ³hackers². Society has regarded them as nerds, people who do nothing but try to crash systems all over the world, and steal software. The only difference between letıs say Picasso and a ³hacker² is that Picasso used a paintbrush and canvas, while ³hackers² used a keyboard and a computer to create their art. The truth is that ³hackers² are people of incredible intelligence and imagination. They are adventurers, visionaries, risk-takers, and artists. ³Hackers² are the only people in the world that grasp the understanding of how computers can be used to revolutionize the world as we know it. The birth of the computer age spawned a new type of creation called a ³HACKER². In the beginning, to be called a ³computer hacker was to wear a badge of honor²( Hafner 11 ). It singled one out as an intellectually restless soul compelled to stay awake for forty hours at a stretch in order to refine a program until it could be refined no more ( Hafner 11 ). Now it is used not as a term of endearment, but as a derogatory term of mistrust, hatred, and fear. The original computer hackers came from MITıs Artificial Intelligence Lab in the fifties and sixties. They were a group known as the ³Tech Model Railroad Club², or TMRC. When it came to hacking, they not only used the computer as a tool, but the computer also became a part of them, to go as far as their imaginations would take them, and sometimes beyond. Their philosophy was like all other hackers: they believed in ³sharing, openness, decentralization , and getting your hands on machines at any cost -- to improve the machines, and to improve the world² ( Levy 7 ). With just a smidgen of help from the press in the 1980ıs, a new generation took on the title of ³hacker² and, as many had predicted, the press turned the name ³hacker² into a name for a group of people who were ³password pirates² and ³electronic burglars². But this feeling of mistrust and fear of the unknown is not felt by all the police and government agencies of the world. For instance, a Special Agent from the FBIıs SF Computer Crime Squad once stated ³The term hackerı is not necessarily derogatory. A small percentage of them give the rest a bad name² ( T.Q.D.B. Jan. 97 ). One of the things that was and still is unknown to the general population, is that there is an ethic that almost every ³hacker² lives and hacks by, the ³hacker ethic². There are many different versions of the ³hacker ethic², but the one thing that holds true is their belief in the freedom of all the information. In the book Hackers , published in 1984, Steven Levy describes the ³hacker ethic² as a ³code of conduct² that championed the free sharing of information and demanded that hackers never harm the data they found² ( Hafner 11 ). To this day, the ³Hacker Code of Conduct² still lives on. The term ³hacker² is something that describes a very large number of different kinds of computer ³hackers². Although it is customary to call people who break into computers hackers , this is a term that has been misapplied by the press; the word hacker also refers, in many cases, to talented and legitimate programmers ( Icove 62 ). ³There is a continuum of offenders and crimes, ranging from pranks to acts of international terrorism² ( Icove 61 ). By law, any kind of ³computer hacker² is a criminal and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The best way to separate the different types of ³hackers² is by their motivation. There are some ³hackers² out there that are, as Seeker1 puts it, ³malicious hackers, i.e. ³crackers², who lack any sort of ethics and belong in jail² ( Seeker1 Jan. 97 ). I do not support Seeker1ıs idea that they are there to cause damage. Even though many other people agree with Seeker1, I do not. I say that most crackers are in it for the intellectual challenge, and that's about it. The book Computer Crime agrees with my idea of a cracker. It states that ³the main motivation of a cracker is access to a system or data² ( Icove 62 ). Throughout the history of ³computer hackers², ³crackers² have been ³attracted to their calling by boredom and the intellectual challenge it presents² ( Icove 62 ). Just like most ³hackers² they sense that the government is against them, and they fight back the only way that they know how, hacking. It has been found that most ³crackers² are in their teens, and even though they are young, they are capable and very ³successful at breaking into all kinds of systems -- banks, companies that manufacture games, traditionally corporate machines, and military machines² ( Icove 62 ). It is true that most are motivated by the intellectual challenge, but some are in it for the personal gain or a way to attack the system that they have gotten themselves into. For some ³crackers², their activities may take them to ³a fantasy world where they can pretend they are a Robin Hood-type character, fighting for truth, justice, and freedom against the system of the evil King John² ( Icove 63 ). In recent years, many ³crackers² have become much more professional in the way they do their cracking, and the reasons they do it. Frequently, theyıll work for hire or will offer, to the highest bidder, the information they've been able to acquire from military or corporate targets ( Icove 63 ). The bad ³crackers² are the kind of ³hackers² depicted in most movies, and make the headlines of newspapers around the world. If you are a government agent who has classified files in your computer, the ³cracker² is the kind of ³hacker² that should strike fear into your heart, and your computerıs hard drive. As computer technology has grown over the years, the kind of information we store in them has become more and more sensitive. Governments use computers to store national secrets, and a vast amount of information that they wish to keep secret from other countries, and even from their own people. Due to this fact, ³computer-related espionage is the espionage of the 1990ıs and beyond² ( Icove 63 ). International spies and their contractors steal secrets from many different government agencies including defense, academic, laboratory research facilitiesı computers, and information and intelligence from law enforcement computers. ³It also encompasses industrial espionage agents who operate for competitive companies or for foreign governments who are willing to pay for information² ( Icove 63 ). When it comes to fraud and abuse, both individuals and criminal organizations are involved in this area. With the drug market so large and growing, all of the major drug cartels, throughout the world, have had to hire computer hackersı. The reason the cartels bring in hackersı is simple: when you make millions of dollars a year ( illegally ), you must hide it from the government so that they donıt seize it; this is where hackersı come in. The ³hackers² take the money and hide it in offshore encrypted accounts where the government canıt get their hands on it. When a ³hacker² gets mad a someone, he or she becomes a vandal. A vandal is a computer hackerı who is ³angry -- most often at a particular organization, but sometimes at life in general² ( Icove 63 ) and becomes destructive to that personıs or organizationıs computer network mischievously. There are two types of vandals: those who are authorized to use the network, and those who aren't. One who has authorization could get their ³root² or ³supervisorıs² password to browse through payroll files, or even highly confidential files that they could damage purposely or just by accident. Outside vandals are very rare; usually they are ³crackers² looking for an intellectual challenge, or they are true criminals looking for information to sell to the highest bidder. Throughout society people judge others by what is said about them on the news and what they see in the movies. We, as a society, need to learn that what we see at first is not the whole story. In the news whenever anything is said about ³hackers², it is almost always bad; but they also play in an important part in our technological growth. On the internet, one web page article grabbed my eye, it stating: Again for all you FBI agents who think that hackers are communists, and that we compromise national security, let me ask you a question. Where would your security be without us? Without hackers and programmers there wouldnıt be a secure system, there wouldnıt be a secure net . . . Sure we are our own enemy, but donıt you think that instead of taking down a 14 year old kid, you could be trying to clean up your own messes. You the CIA, the IRS, the FDA, and all government officials have become so obfuscated by politics that you fail to see that we are the foundations on which the next century is to be built. You canıt conquer a nation that has no face. We are the children of VMS and DEC, our words are ASCII and ANSI. When you can learn to see past your labret, you will find that the world we are building has no tariffs or trade embargoes, it is the free society in which data and information are the professors of the young, not the spoils of the Bay of Pigs, of the Vietnam War. ( http://www.diac.com:80/~asnk/303.html Jan. 97 ) The ³hackers² of the twentieth century are growing in number and in strength. They are as intelligent as our most famous scientists and as creative as our most famous inventors. The ³hackers² of the future are the young ³wily hackers² ( Seeker1 Jan. 97 ) of today and should not be prejudged by the population, but by evaluating the motivation of their actions, and their results. The next time you read or hear about ³hackers², find out the rest of the story before passing judgment. Bibliography 303 Denver Area Hackers. [Online] Available: http://www.diac.com:80/~asnk/303.html, January 18, 1997 Hafner, Katie, and John Markoff. Cyberpunk Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995 Icove,David, Karal Seger, and William VonStorch. Computer Crime A Crimefighters Handbook. California: OıReilly & Associates, Inc., 1995 Levy, Steven. Hackers Heroes of the Computer Revolution. New York: Deli Publishing, Bantam Doubleday Deli Publishing Group Inc., 1994. Seeker1, Re: BAD WRAP. [Online] Available e-mail: stretch5@airmail.net from seeker1@anthro.ufl.edu, January 15, 1997 T.Q.D.B., Re: BAD WRAP. [Online] Available e-mail: stretch5@airmail.net from tqdb@feist.com, January 15, 1997
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