The New Generation of Hackers (editorial)

I'm somewhat wary of posting an editorial on this topic, but it's good to think about. Brad Hall has written in to talk about Hackers and Hacking and how it has changed over the past few years. This is interesting since Hollywood and the Media have created this view of hackers that is often quite far from the truth. Hit the link below to read what Brad has to say on the topic, and if you feel like it, read my comments on the end.

The following is written by Slashdot reader Brad Hall. Direct questions and comments to him.

The difference is that it used to be funny. It was used for pranks, not to spread fear. Like the people that changed the web site for the Central Intelligence Agency to Central Stupidity Agency. Hacks like that are funny, and don't hurt anything but the ego of the CIA. Nowadays it's all about fear and power.

Take the most recent case: an Israeli hacker named "Analyzer" broke into a bunch of systems with a pair of Californian kids he taught how to do it. Analyzer it's obviously one of the older breed. His creed was "I find weak points, and help shore them up, I'm doing the sysadmins a favor." I generally don't have a problem with that type of creed, as long as it is done right. But the Californians down right scare me. After the Fed's picked them up, one of them gave this explanation: "It's power dude. You know, power." And this scares me. It's no longer about curiosity, or fun, or pranks. To these kids, it's a power trip. Power, like every addiction, is always craving for more. These kids will need more and more to get off on the power. Very soon they won't be satisfied just snooping around, they'll need to do damage. Pretty soon they'll need to bring down whole networks just to get high on their power trip. Then, like all destructive power trips, it goes into causing real damage. They'll start going after systems that affect the real world. Perhaps the robotic arms in a factory, and someone is going to die. And that scares me.

These days, breaking into systems is turning more and more into a military endeavor. The idea of Information Warfare is a reality. The Army is literally training hackers to penetrate enemy systems and cause serious damage. Which brings me to my next point: the Analyzer was hacking from Isreal. The internet is truly global, but the nations themselves are not. And in these days of "Plausible Denials" how can we tell the difference between an agressive country and an aggressive individual in that country? How do we know that the Analyzer isn't, in fact, working for the Mossad? (The Isreali intelligence organization) We have caught spies from Isreal in our country before, the Analyzer's real objective could have been military data for his government.

Now, if one of those kids on a power trip takes out an American military network, and let's say these kids are from Cuba. Does that constitute a military attack? You can bet your *ss the Army will see it that way. Even if the Cuban government denies it, the Army will have to assume it came from the government, and launch an attack before any more damage is done to the US. A kid breaking into a system could very easily lead to war. And that is frightening...

This is the end of Brad's stuff. Blame me again after this point..

My opinion is that the hackers haven't changed much. Hacking has always been about power. Not necessarily power to destroy something, but the power to break into a 'secure' system. The difference is that 10 years ago, the fun prank that resulted from these activities was relatively minor. The last few years have seen a growth in Web Page replacements, and as time progresses, more tasks migrate to the internet and hacks will be possible into more dangerous things.

Slashdot isn't about Hackers and Hacking, but I would love to recieve email from hackers discussing their viewpoints and ethics. Many hack groups police themselves with codes of ethics and unofficial guidelines, I would love to hear more about this stuff. I'll respect anonymity if anyone asks for it.

It's important to me that hacking be viewed as a positive thing on the net. They find security holes that, when publicized, get fixed. This helps everyone, but are those days numbered? Talk about it below: