Code From Other Hackers example essay topic

"What is not fully understood is not possessed". -- Goethe "Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven". -- Shakespeare The term "hacker" has taken on varying meanings over the years. Originally deemed a compliment to the hacker, it has been taken and twisted by the media to mean someone intending to cause chaos in the computing world and, through computers, to society in general. Yet there are still those today who retain the original value of the word, using it to convey integrity, honor, and pride.

Is this "hacker ideal" justified? How many types of hackers are there? Finally, why do they continue in their pursuit, whatever that pursuit might be? Throughout this work, I will continually change gears, discussing the good hackers, bad hackers and, if possible, those in between. This will serve to get a better understanding of who hackers are, what they do, and why. I. Definition / What They Do To begin talking about hackers, we must first understand the definition of the term. Different people will have different definitions, and it is difficult to find an unbiased definition.

Those who look down on them would say that a hacker "is someone who maliciously or non-maliciously breaks into someone else's website or code and makes a change, or sends around code that will do harm to someone's system". (Evans) To this type of person, a hacker is just an "underachiever looking for attention". Those involved in the hacker "scene", though, would think differently. To them, a hacker could be classified as the following: A hacker programs tools... that they would find useful both from scratch and by modifying existing code. A hacker also can navigate through the source code of others and still make sense of it, ... debug it, ... or improve it as they see fit. Also, a hacker enjoys performing the activities described above.

(Jarvis) So, as defined by a hacker himself, a hacker is one who not only has programming skills, but is also one who enjoys exercising these skills. This is very similar to the definition provided by the famous Jargon file, found in The New Hacker's Dictionary. Paraphrased, it defines "hacker" as a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities; one who programs enthusiastically, or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming (Raymond, 1997). Finally, if we wish to ask the Merriam-Webster dictionary, we find almost conflicting definitions. In one instance, a hacker is "an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer".

Yet in another, a hacker is "a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system". In the mid-1980's, those in the hacker culture were frustrated with the media blaming the whole for the evils of the few, so they started using the term "cracker" to mean a hacker with ill intent and often illegal methods. With this correction in place, it elevates a pure and true hacker to a higher status. A hacker becomes an individual who has programming skills that are well above average, who enjoys working with computers in many, if not all, of their aspects, and does so for their own benefit and that of other hackers. If we wish to be more general, we could apply the term "hacker" to fields other than computer science.

One who works with industrial machines may "hack" something together, i.e. take a broken machine and some spare parts, though they may not be the correct parts, and piece together a working machine out of them. Or the same machinist may "hack at" a machine, or improve its performance through tweaking and modifying it. To go even further, we could think of the music industry. Mr. Helfrich makes an excellent point, that "The term hacker is not just limited to computers, I feel that many musical artists out there that don't focus on hype, but explore new kinds of music are in fact hackers". As varying as the definitions may be, as long as we wish to discuss the topic, we must come to some consensus. For the remainder of the discussion, we shall mainly follow the New Hacker's Dictionary version.

II. How They Started Hackers as a society began roughly in the mid to late 1970's, when the Internet, and all its progeny, took off like a rocket. First used by government agencies, and soon after by colleges and universities, the Internet was the fastest and easiest way to communicate and share information. The earliest of hackers were mostly students and employees of these universities sharing programs and information so that they could be improved.

The man considered to be the grand-daddy of all hackers is Richard Stallman. He worked in MIT's Artificial Intelligence lab in the 1970's and 1980's. His major claims to fame are the invention of the text editor Emacs and the founding of the GNU free software project. Stallman's philosophy began by believing that source code should be freely distributed and modified for the benefit of both the code and the coders. In time, this belief broadened from just code to all information, finally giving way to one of the founding points of the hacker ethic (see section? ).

All in the computing industry did not immediately share Stallman's ideas; in fact, he met with great opposition. Over the years, though, he found some like-minded individuals, and they found more, and the theory of exponential growth was proven yet again. Now, the GNU free software movement is a mainstay in the computing world.. Types of Hackers A. Hats Generally speaking, hackers can be broken up into the same two groups as any other type of person: the good ones, and the bad (or evil) ones. There are those who use their skills for the benefit of humanity, and those who use their skills for destructive purposes. Hackers of the latter variety are usually referred to as "crackers", though oftentimes the public uses these terms interchangeably.

In the hacker community, though, there are three terms that are often used to describe hackers: white hat, black hat, and gray hat. Unfortunately, just as there are discrepancies in the definition of "hacker", these three colors are also difficult to define, though one's connotations are generally correct. Crackers are black-hat hackers, those that purposely and maliciously break security for their own twisted goals. White-hat hackers are usually ones hired by companies to test their security. Other times, a white-hat hacker is "a hacker who, upon discovering a vulnerability in a computer system, alerts the system vendor to the problem" (McFedries). Gray-hat hackers are either those who break security purely for the thrill of the hack (analogous to hunting for sport), or "supply information about a security issue both to the vendor and to crackers" (McFedries).

Suffice it to say that just as there are good and bad politicians, just as there are good and bad priests, there will always be good and bad hackers. This is both a universal constant and human nature. B. Personalities I had my first computer when I was ten years old, in fourth grade. I had used several dial-up BBS systems until my first real internet account through my middle school's Umass K-12 program. Since then, I have met many hackers, both in person and online. At the time, though, they were just "friends". I had no concept of hacking in my earliest days, simply the idea that computers could be connected together and manipulated by the other person.

Telnet and Lynx (a text-based web browser) were magical things. I used many online "talkers" and IRC chat rooms. As I got older and wiser, and started to discern the idea of "computer people", I noticed that these computer people fit into one of three major categories. The first of these categories, and least flattering, are the young charlatans. These are the younger, highschool-aged people who think hacking is "cool".

Most of these are script-kiddies, using some p rewritten exploits, or programming on their own in Visual Basic at best. They think they have major skills, when in fact, they are barely more advanced users than their parents. They have no desire to learn about the internals of a computer, or the workings of the internet, or anything advanced. They have little respect for other hackers, except for one or two of their close friends.

This type was originally influenced by the idea of the "cyberpunk", developed by Neuromancer by Bruce Bethe, which itself was influenced by John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider. Though higher-level hackers are annoyed by these people, "the general consensus is to tolerate them politely in hopes that they " ll attract people who grow into being true hackers". (Raymond, 1997) On the other end of the spectrum are those I would like to call the Buddhas. These are the gurus that know more about a particular subject of computing than most others.

They are the true coders, yet they would never boast their skills. Whether intentionally or incidentally, they tend to have an eastern philosophical idea about code and hacking and the like. I have an opinion that anybody who calls him- or herself an "uber-leet" hacker is the exact opposite. Even if these hackers are crackers, they still have some notion of honor, pride, and respect.

The third type falls somewhere in the middle, and is the category in which I would tentatively place myself, and most hackers I know. They tend to refrain from using exploits or scripts, though they may write one or two. They have a preferred language, usually C or java, perhaps even scheme or perl. These mid-level hackers are more aware of securing their own computers than their less experienced brethren. By the fact that they have grown out of their script-kiddie phase, or bypassed it altogether, they have potential to be elite, and this is respected, and occasionally nurtured, by the more wizardly hackers. C. More on Personality To psychoanalyze hackers, one would discover that they are intelligent, obsessively curious, and abstract thinkers.

Hackers are able to absorb, retain, and regurgitate large amounts of trivia in the smallest detail, and this attention to detail is a more important hacker trait than a high intelligence. They are not necessarily computer-oriented, and any subject that offers mental stimulation, especially a more obscure topic, is of great interest. The better at hacking one is, the better the hacker will be at their other non-computer related activities. Hackers tend to be introverted, intuitive, and contemplative.

Just as they prefer to think out a problem or program before actively pursue a solution, the hacker does so with even the least technical of tasks. Hackers are not content with a little knowledge about a topic; they want every detail they can find. IV. Why They Hack A. For Others Once we can finally grasp what, or who, a hacker is, the next question may be "Why do they do what they do?" First, we will look into the hacker ethic. Though it may be difficult for some to comprehend that hackers have ethics, please remember again that not all hackers are bad, just like not all politicians are bad (though we may like to think so every now and again). The first portion of the hacker ethic, as stated by the New Hacker's Dictionary is as follows: hacker ethic n.

1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible. This is a very Stallman esque ideal, in that hackers, as we have defined them, believe that all information should be shared freely. This also seems to be philanthropic, since this ideal is an "ethical duty" to share their knowledge with others for the benefit of all. Of course, it only has these charitable overtones when the information is distributed. Black-hat hackers take this section of the ethic to mean that all information should be accessible, and accessed, by any means necessary.

The white-hats actively practice the sharing of ideas, whereas the black-hats prefer to steal it from protected sources. There is a second half to the hacker ethic, one that is less subscribed to, yet still considered and practiced by some, mostly the gray-hats: "The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality". (Raymond, 1997) Further in the definition, it goes on to explain "it may be one of the highest forms of hackery courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop... exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged... ".

This opens up an entire range of ethical issues involving security, privacy, and the law. It is almost giving hackers permission to break into systems, under the guise that they are doing their target a service. On the even darker side of the coin, some hackers hack to bring down the system. They are akin to electronic terrorists, except that most of them have no real agenda other than the mass destruction of the electronic medium that they ultimately thrive on. They are the sociopaths of the Internet, and pride themselves on being so. These people, along with the more mundane crackers, give hackers their bad public opinion. B. For Themselves Probably the greater reason true hackers hack is for their self-education.

Hackers have a great deal of respect for knowledge, as reflected by the first definition of the Hacker Ethic. Hackers program to become better programmers. They share their code so that others may benefit from their knowledge, and they find no shame in using code from other hackers, because they then learn how to solve whatever problem they had in the first place. Anything they can do to enlighten themselves, they will do it. The hackers and crackers of the Internet also find tremendous problem-solving satisfaction by cracking servers, rooting boxes, and other such mischief. Whether it is for the thrill of the hack, like hunting for sport, or the intellectual puzzle of finding passwords and back doors, many crackers love what they do.

It's as much a sport as it is an education. The day a proud hacker can say "I rooted the CIA", he or she will have the trophy to end all trophies. V. Tools of the Trade A. Basics Hackers, particularly the crackers, have many tools they use when infiltrating someone else's computer. The most basic of these are general internet-related tools that can be found on a basic UNIX or Linux system, and even online. These include ping, traceroute, and whois. A ping is analogous to sonar, and was named after the "ping" sound a submarine's sonar produces. If one computer pings another, it's simply checking to see whether or not that computer is online.

A ping response will look like this: Pinging web [66.218. 71.81] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 66.218. 71.81: bytes = 32 time = 87 ms TTL = 47 Reply from 66.218. 71.81: bytes = 32 time = 117 ms TTL = 47 Reply from 66.218. 71.81: bytes = 32 time = 84 ms TTL = 47 Reply from 66.218. 71.81: bytes = 32 time = 85 ms TTL = 47 Ping statistics for 66.218.

71.81: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 84 ms, Maximum = 117 ms, Average = 93 ms This gives the hacker the most basic information, including the IP address of the English-word hostname. In this case, web translates into 66.218. 71.81. Traceroute is similar to ping, with an added function. Where a ping simply tells you that it got to the destination and back in a particular time frame, a traceroute tells you exactly which routers and switches it went through along the way to its destination. For example: 1 vlan 1. camcolo-is 01-rc 1. bbnplanet. net (199.94.

217.7) 0.442 ms 2 gigabit ethernet 4-0. camcolo-dbe 1. bbnplanet. net (128.11. 194.65) 0.223 ms 3 p 4-0. cambridge 1-nbr 1. bbnplanet. net (4.0. 5.162) 0.249 ms 4 p 5-0. cambridge 1-nbr 2. bbnplanet. net (4.0. 1.110) 0.336 ms This shows every stop the packed made before getting to its final destination. This would be similar to your mailman showing you every road he took before getting to your house. Finally, whois will give you information on a particular hostname, such as who the hostname is registered to, how many other hostnames are registered with it, etc.

Here is one more demonstration: Domain Name: UMASS. EDU Registrar: EDUCAUSE Whois Server: whois. educause. net Referral URL: web Name Server: NIC. UMASS. EDU Name Server: NS 3. CW. NET Name Server: UNIX 1.

CS. UMASS. EDU Name Server: KIRA. ECS. UMASS. EDU Name Server: NS 1.

UMASS. EDU Updated Date: 26-mar-2002 Though to a normal user this information may seem secondary, it means a lot in the hands of someone who knows what it all means. Pings, traceroute, and whois queries can give a hacker the basics about what he or she may need to know about a potential target. B. Higher Learning Once the poor victim has been found, there are a few options, if a hacker decides to gain access to the machine. A port scan can reveal the types of services a computer is running, and can even be used as a fingerprint to determine what operating system it has. If the hacker has this information, it then becomes much easier to gain access. Another way to view the internet habits about a machine is to run a packet sniffer.

These programs monitor the network traffic on any given network. They can then decode these packets into the actual information. A hacker can see the websites you view, the type of music-downloading program you use, and even read your instant messenger conversations. No program is perfect. Every service running on a server is flawed in some way. Crackers take advantage of these flaws when trying to root a system.

Some flaws are found in the protocol used. For example, the Secure Shell (SSH) version 1 protocol, though much safer than generic telnet, still has security issues. Each publicly published version of the SSH protocol add their own flaws, adding more holes through which to access a machine. This type of hack is called an exploit, and is most commonly used by the less creative crackers.

Another way of overriding security is by using a Trojan program. To my knowledge, Windows is the only operating system for which Trojans are programmed. A Trojan is a miniature program, usually hidden inside another, that the user accidentally installs on their system. It could be sent through email, over IRC, or even through FTP.

Once this Trojan is installed on the target's computer, it allows the cracker unrestricted access to all its files and functions, including internet access, CD drive, and rebooting. True hackers, those that love to write programs, use publishing databases such as web CVS, or sourceforge. net. These are web-based services that allow programmers to share their programs with others, allow other users to download and use their programs for free, and give other hackers a chance to improve someone else's code. For example, sourceforge currently hosts over fifty-five thousand projects.

Though the grand majority of these are programs for internet usage, security, gaming, and multimedia, but there are other categories such as education, religion, and sociology. I daresay that anybody who either posts their own programs or assists in someone else's is, whether they would admit or not, a hacker in the truest form of the word. VI. My Friend, J. Random Hacker In The New Hackers' Dictionary, there is an appendix titled "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker".

All in all, it is a very good representation of who a hacker is, how one acts, dresses, etc. It was compiled from many Usenet newsgroup posts, and tends to be very accurate in its descriptions. Here, I will briefly describe the habits of a generic hacker. As far as clothing and appearance is concerned, the hacker cares more for comfort and function than fashion.

Jeans and t-shirts are standard equipment. Hackers very rarely wear business suits of any kind, a practice that also stems from their hatred of suits, or businessmen, in the everyday office. Pocket protectors are nearly nonexistent, contrary to the traditional "nerd" stereotype. Traditionally, female hackers rarely wear visible makeup, and many wear none at all. Hackers are generally opposed to organized or team sports, and tend to avoid physical activity altogether. The exception is most evident in the younger generation, who get their exercise from self-competitive sports, such as mountain climbing, cycling, swimming, and martial arts.

The latter has had a tremendous upswing in the 1990's, and seems to be the hacker's sport of choice, "and the martial-arts culture combining skill-centered elitism with a willingness to let anybody join seems a stronger parallel to hacker behavior than ever". (Raymond, 2002) Religiously, hackers tend to be atheist, agnostic, Jewish, neo-pagan, or some combination thereof. Traditional Christian hackers are rare but not absent. Eastern religions are also great influences on hacker culture.

Hackers that actively practice one religion are open and friendly to those of a different faith. Those that have no well-defined religion generally tend to have a Taoist or Buddhist philosophy, or similar beliefs to the neo-pagans. Many terms used by hackers, both old and new, have a mystic theme to them, such as wizard, guru, magic smoke, incantation, possession, etc. As laid-back as hackers can usually be, they also tend to be vehemently opposed to anyone who disagrees with their technological preference.

Hackers who prefer Windows look down upon the Linux users, and the Linux hackers claim that the Windows users haven't yet "seen the light". Emacs and vi have intense rivalries. Hackers who prefer to avoid Usenet newsgroups abhor them, and consider them a waste of space. Because of these traits, hackers can have difficulty staying in relationships, both romantic and platonic.

Hackers tend to have a fleeting attention span with activities that are not related with computers. They also have difficulty dealing with "normal people", and, as mentioned above, avoid group sports and activities. Because of this, many hackers are said to have either Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Asperger's syndrome (AS). Hackers themselves attribute these diagnoses on the modern fad of blaming normal variation in personalities on medical conditions.

They tend to dispute the sheer existence of ADD and AS, and if they do believe them to be real, whether or not they are "diseases". VII. In Conclusion... Hackers are people. They are a group of people with similar interests ant traits. Just as words like punk, jock, hoodlum, and raver have popped up over the years to separate one group of people from another, normal society finds a group with different, "abnormal" characteristics and separates them from the rest by using a label.

What started out as an elite group of idealistic programmers has now been twisted by the media into a menace to society. True hackers despise these crackers with a passion, not just for giving hackers a bad name, but also because they disagree with their methods. True hackers are on a quest for knowledge. They believe, as Shakespeare did, that "ignorance is the curse of God; [and] knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven". All they desire from the rest of the world is the same respect they give each other.

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Raymond, Eric Steven; The New Hacker's Dictionary, third edition; the MIT Press; Cambridge MA; 1997. Raymond, Eric Steven; The Jargon File; web 2002. Accessed 4 December 2002. Raymond, Eric Steven; "How to Become a Hacker"; web hacker-howto. html; 2001. Torvalds, Linus; Just For Fun: the Story of an Accidental Revolutionary; Harper Collins Publishers; New York NY; 2001. Wang, Wallace; Steal This Computer Book 2: What They Won't Tell You About the Internet; No Starch Press, San Francisco CA; 2001.

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