Computer Hackers example essay topic

1 It is the weekend you have nothing to do so you decide to play around on your computer. You turn it and than start up, calling people with your modem, connecting to another world with people. This is all fine but what happens when you start getting into other people's computer files, then it becomes a crime and who are the criminals. To begin i will start with hacking and hackers. Hacking is the act of breaking into computers and network of other popple's with out any permission. Hacking is like drugs or any other substance, its an addiction for the mind and once started it is difficult to stop.

Hacker is a person who enjoy learning details of a programming language or system, who tries to break into computer systems. There is two types of hackers. On is the benign hackers, who likes get into his or her own computer and understand how it works. The malicious hackers is the person who likes getting into other people's system. Black hat is used to describe a hacker who break into a computer system or network with malicious intent. Unlike white hat, the black hat takes advantage of the break in perhaps destroying files or stealing data for some future purpose.

White hat hackers describes a hacker who identifies a security weakness in a computer system or network but instead of taking malicious advantage of it. They will allow the system's owners to fix it before can be taken advantage by others. But U. S law does not see differences between black hat hacker and white hat hacker. Many of the popple in our society today often think that computer hackers are very smart individuals who have special talents and abilities and enabling them to crack passwords, send viruses, cancel your cable tv, raid your social security and crash computer systems.

Most people in our society do not spend the time to break into computer systems but all studies indicate that hackers are young and not have full time jobs or own 2 They have so much time and energy to break into computers. Hackers learn hacking from reading different kind of computer books, they find many available tools on the internet, they spend so much time on the computer to learn the techniques of hacking. Some of the hackers hack for to gain highest prestige within the community. Some of them hack just for fun, more they hack more fun they have. Hacking is just another way to relieve a build up of adrenaline in the body. They also gain great deal of power from learning confidential information.

Hacking involves accumulation of knowledge which is accompanied by the greater status and power. Some of the hackers say that they only punish people an companies that they do not like and to show weakness of companies which have poor security. Some feel that if they put others down they will elevate to higher level. Most of the young hackers do not know the implication of what they are doing, they do not consider that if they do get into a system and start to hack they could costs the company thousands millions of dollars. Every computer have made mistakes that has caused the loss of data, service and money but some hackers have never been in real situation to understand this issue.

These people are displaying situational. Many professionals argue that the cause why hackers hack is about the same as any other criminal. It mostly has to deal with their families and friends and the environment they grew up in. I agree with professionals at this point and 'y be live that the issue goes back to how they are raised. I am not saying that these people have bad parents. I think that while parents go around telling their children not to use drugs or any other substance, to study hard in school, probably they do not their children not to break other people's computer systems or hacking is bad and illegal.

Information security professions must be more visible in a way that set children before the hackers community sets them. They get together to teach children about hacking before somebody else does. 3 Some hackers are not really terrorist in a way they help companies find out flows in their systems. And real hackers do not delete or destroy any information on the system they hack. Best hackers end up with high-paying security consulting jobs because of their expertise. Hackers may use any types of systems to access information depending on way they intend on doing in the system.

The methods hackers use attack your machine or network are fairly simple. If hacker experienced and smart he will use telnet to access shell on other machine so that the risk of caught is lower than doing it using their on system. A hacker scan vulnerable system by using a demon dialer which will redial a number repeatedly until a connection is made. Or use war dialer, is an application that uses a modem to dial thousands random phone numbers to find another modem connected to a computer.

Hackers also use the Net to share lists of vulnerable IP addresses- the unique location of internet connected computers with un patched security holes. Once hacker find a machine, he uses a hacker tool such as Whistler to identify in less than a second what operating system the machine is using and whether any un patched holes exist in it. Whistler also provide a list of exploits the hacker can use to take advantage of these holes. Once hacker crack into a system, his next goal is to get root, or give himself the highest level of access on the machine.

The hacker can use little-known commands to get or can search the documents in the system's hard drive for a file or e-mail message that contains the system administrators password. Hacker can create legitimate user account and log in whenever he wants without attracting attention. He can also alter or delete system logs to erase any evidence such as command lines that he gained access to the system. Software always has bugs, system administrators and programmers can never eliminate all possible software vulnerabilities. Hackers find a hole to break in. Hackers also coach 4 passwords.

Cracking password is coming very easy to hackers because most of the people use the names of themselves, their children, pet or car model as their passwords. so smart hackers easily crack their passwords. Or hacker use a program that will try every possible word in the dictionary. hacker usually have a copy of the english dictionary as well as foreign language dictionaries for this purpose. Hacker's main goals is to hide evidence of the attacks and make sure they can get back in again. One of the other main is DOS attacks but do not involve breaking into a system or network unusable. It can be local or network based and have always been difficult to defend against. A firewall (is a program which stops other connection's from different servers to the firewall server) can not prevent all of these attacks because some of the attacks are outside the firewall and they are all difficult to distinguish from normal traffic.

The effects of these attacks were to make sites inaccessible such as yahoo. Hackers always find hole in every security systems and they get what they want, they can travel through the internet without. One of the hackers who was situated in an east coast house wa interested in the stocks market so he purchased 100,000 dollars worth of shares in the stock market. Then he hacked into stocks markets main computer and stole 80 million dollars.

The hacker was caught although 53 million dollars was not recovered The homepage of United States Air Force was recently hacked and the contents had been changed. The webpage has been changed completely as the hacker had inserted pornographic pictures saying ' t ihs is what are we doing to you ' and had under the image 'screwing you'. The hackers have changed it and shown their views on the political system. Kevin Mitnick who broke into a North America Air Defence command computer, Kevin Paulsen who cracked government and military systems of America. Another major hack which was committed was by a 16 year old boy in Europe.

This boy hacked into the British Airforce 5 and downloaded confidential information on Ballistic missiles. Security experts agree that the best way to combat these attacks is simply with better security practices or not having connected to the internet. As computer technologies have become more a more integral part of our daily lives, the perceived governmental / legal responsibility to protect those technologies has increased. Itis quite obvious that the criminal implication of technological advancement have caught governments, legal system as well as the public of guard. Bureaucracy is slow, technology is fast.

If they can, it will take time for the public regulatory system to catch up. There are many legal difficulties that the government and the courts have to work through concerning computer crime regulation in order to for the law to be effective while many computer crimes are variations an old crime, there are new activities that are just started to be considered criminal. One example is the case of R. Maclaughlen which had to do with a student who obtained access to a computer system and escaped legal consequences because the law did not have an applicable section. Fitting computer crime into laws is also very difficult. Another problem with law is the people that make the law. Legislators have to be familiar with high-tech meta rials that the hackers are using but most of them know very little about computer systems.

Current law system is unfair; it tramples over the rights of the individual, and is not productive. New uses of computer technologies have caused established legal definitions to come under review. For example, should data be considered property? Even so there is the realization that computer crime laws should have technologically neutral meanings. Laws thar are not technologically neutral may become absolute they are even passed. Legal definition also become an issue when involved regulators have limited understanding of the technologies through the crimes can be committed.

There is also difficulty of determining sentences or 6 penalties for crime committed. Goverment and members of the court have take into consideration factors as the following. the intend of the accused the previous record of the offender the extent or potential extent of the offence appropriate punishment to fit the crime the concept of providing to deterrent to the crime act compensation for the victim in civil cases What can be considered acceptable evidence in computer crime cases has also come into question. For example the court have that agreements or contracts require paper records. Electronic records to date have been admitted in court cases but the results have been inconsistent. The federal government and the provinces are considering amending their respective evidence acts to allow the admission of electronic records where the record system is deemed reliable. U. S law enforcement leaders said the computer attacks were one of the fastest growing areas of crime. Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University has been taking Internet attacks since 1988.

Their statistics reveal an alarming growth in computer attacks: Year Attacks 1988 61989 1321990 2521991 4061992 7731993 1, 3341994 2, 3401995 2, 4121996 2, 5731997 2, 1341998 3, 7341999 9, 8592000 21,756 Having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized 7 access, and by means of such conduct having obtained information that has been determined by the United States Goverment pursuant to an Executive order or statute to require protection against unauthorized for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, or any restricted data, as defined in paragraph y. of section 11 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation willfully communicates, delivers, transmits, or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to tha officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; 1) Intantionally access a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access. a) Information from any department or agency of the United States; orb) Information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication) Information contained in a financial record of a financial instit ion, or of a card issuer as defined in section 1602 (n) of title 15, or contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S. C 1681 et seq) 2) Intantionally, without authorization to access any nonpublic computer of a department or agency of the United States, accesses such a computer of that department or agency that is exclusively for such use, is use by or for the Goverment of the United States and such conduct affects that use by. 3) Knowingly and with intent to defraud, accesses protected computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access and means of such conduct furthers the intended fraud and obtains anything of value, unless the object of fraud and the thing obtained consists only of the use of the computer and the value of such use is not more than 5000 dollars in any 1 year period. 8 4) Knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, command, and as a result of a such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization to a protected computer. 5) Knowingly and with the intent to defraud traffics in any password or similar information through which a computer may be accessed without authorization, if such computer is used by or for the Goverment of the United States.

6) With intent to extort from any person, firm, association, educational institution, financial institution, government entity or other legal entity, any money or other thing of value transmits in interstate foreign commerce any communication and threat to cause damage to protected computer shall be punished. In U.S.A. law, computer tampering penalties range from 500 dollars and 15 years in prison depending on the damage to the computer system. Computer fraud penalties are up to 7 years in prison. Computer hackers also can be charged under federal law if the criminal activity stretches over state lines, penalties up to 250,000 dollars and 1 year in prison for the first offence.

Original hackers ethics was sort of informal ethical code developed by the original hackers in the 50's and 60's. These hackers were the first generation of program ers. The ethics reflects their ideology of the liberator y power of technology. These hackers were moral thinkers computer software and hardware. The first ethic code is Hands on Imperative: access to computer and remove barriers between people and government and understanding of technology. Information wants to be free: the computer has been in the hands of government and big buisnesse's.

Goverment activities, corp rate crime, illegitimate information needs to be disseminated. And hackers want to know when the government is killing people and they also said everyone have right to gain information about government. Mistrust Authority: hackers always shown distrust toward large institution cor operations. And they said PC's power move 9 away from large organizations to hands of individuals.

No bogus Criteria: Hackers should be judged by their hacking not by 'bogus criteria's uch as race, age, sex or position. You can create truth and beauty on a computer: Hacking is equated edith artistry and creativity. This element of the ethos raises to the level of philosophy (as opposed to simple pragmatism) which is about humanity's search for the good, the true and the beautiful. Without question, good programing hacking is art and as with art each person has their own signature and style. Computer can change your life for the better: The world of cyder space is more real than the real world itself. Because it is only within the virtual world that people are really to be free themselves, to speak without fear, to participate in a dialogue where one is judged by the merits of their words, not the color of their skin or the timbre of their voice.

Ethical principle of hackers ethics suggest it is ethical duty of hackers to remove barriers, power and create things by using computers. Now there is new hackers ethics which developed by 90's hackers. Above all else, do not harm: do not damage computers, data if it possible hack must be safe, not damage anything and anyone (physically or mentally). Leave no trace: do not leave trail or trace of your computer presence, , keep quite, keep low profile. Hackers have to protect other hackers from being caught or loosing access.

Share do not hide. Just because it wants to be free does not mean you must give it to as many people as possible. Protect privacy: people have a right to privacy, which means control over their own personal information. The concept of privacy is something that is very important to a hacker. Hackers know how fragile privacy is in today's world.

Exceed Limitation: hacking is about the continual transcendence of problem limitations. Telling something can not be done, is a moral imperative for him to try. Hacking always seeks to surpass current limits. Limitations must be overcome, for some hackers these k imitations might be unjust laws or outdated moral codes Hackin help security: hacking is a positive force because it shows people how to mend weak 10 security or in some cases to recognize and accept that total security is unattainable without drastic sacrifice. This ethical principle seems to be agreed upon by some members of the industry.

Trust but test: you must constantly test the integrity of system and find ways to improve them. Do not leave maintenance and schematics to others, understand fully the system you use or which affect you. If you can exploit certain systems (such as the telephone network) in ways that their creators never intended or anticipated, that's all to the better. This could help them create better system Hackers ethics changes because computer are more powerful, more distributed, more important now.

Hackers ethics unnoticed before because fiddling with larger complex system was so difficult until recently. There have always thinkers but their explorations were very local. We live in y he age of computers. Everything is control ed by massive mainframes (electricity, water distribution, telephone systems). Also society has changed, old hackers lived in a society which was based on trust and honesty that's why their behaviour's was different.

Computer is driven now not by knowledge but for money. Generation changed too. Hackers are more pessimist e, thoughtless more careless and more self-centered. I the truth of the matter is everyone has their own hacker ethics. No one plans to arrested but the hackers have several rules that they apply when they are arrested.

They do not try to convince the officer of their innocence it is useless. Because they do not care hackers are innocent or not. It is the job of the judge or jury to free hackers if he is right. Hackers must keep quite because police will ask questions. Don not give permission to search anywhere.

If law enforcement ask, it probably means they do ont believe they have the right to search and need your consent. If the police are searching your home or computer do not look at the places you wish they would not search. Do not react to the search at all, and especially not to questions like ' who does this belongs to 'Hackers do not be live what 11 the police tell them in order to get them talk. The law permits them to lie to a suspect in order to get him to make admission.

For example they will separate two fir ends who have ben arrested and tell the first one that second one squealed on him. The first one then squeals on the second though in the truth second one never said anything. If at home, never invite the police inside nor should you step outside. If the police believe you have committed a felony, they usually need an arrest warrant to go into your home to arrest you. Probably they have not got warrant to enter or to arrest you in your home. And if the hacker arrested outside their home do not accept any offers to let him go inside to get dressed, change their clothes, get jacket, call your wife or any other reason.

The police will of course escort you inside and then search everywhere they want without any warrant. I give some information in my research paper about hacking, hackers and about their world I try to understand who are the hackers, how their mentality work and their lifestyle and also government regulations against these smart individuals. 'Information security professions must be more visible in a way that get children before the hackers community gets them. They get together to teach parents and schools and also they must teach children about hacking and hackers before somebody else does. And also government takes to find a way to stop hackers. If the government does not hurry up they are going to get buried by hackers and when that happens the world will not be a fun places to live in and as lo the cyberspace.

12 WORK C'YTED Cert Coordination Center Computer Crime in today's Society Retrieved: November 10, 2000 from the World Wide Web: http: // web Computer Club (january 05, 1995) Hacker Bible The New Hackers Dictionary (online education) Retrieved November 10, 2000 from the Worl Wide Web A non-technical ar tical from business web zine about Distributed Denial Service Attacks: web / Ca-99-17-denial-of-service-tools. html Tool from the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center: web Criminal Heroes Of Cyberspace And Law That Apply Against Their Attacks The internet is one of the newest form and effective tools of technology. The world would be lost without it. Millions of people would be using the internet to share information, make new association and communicate. From individuals and students to businesses and journalist using the internet to share information.

The internet would allow people to send and receive data, notes, messages, documents, pictures. But there is considerable drawback of the internet. The problem is hackers, they have tremendous knowledge on the subject and use it to steal confidential for the sake of fun or profit and they use computer technology as a weapon. It is called cyder terrorism, they threat the global security. People who are responsible from their security on the internet try to improve their systems, find new ways to protect their against hackers. But hackers are still making trouble and breaking in the computer systems.

Hacking is presenting problems for companies, universities and law-enforcement officials in every industry country. Why do hackers go through all the trouble to do what they do? Why they spend so much of their time and energy accomplishing these feats of? What is the cause that turns those mostly above-average intelligent people to purpose a criminal career, and destroy their otherwise very successful career? why do hey commit these computer related crimes as an obsession.

What they want? I try to find answers to these questions. Information on hacking and hackers can be found in several popular magazines and through web sources. However, it is hard to find books on hacking and hackers available at libraries.

I will mainly use the internet and it will play the biggest part in my paper. I will use popular search engines, online journals and magazines, and databases to conduct my internet research. Once all the source are gathered i will carefully read through each one and highlight significant parts that will be used in the research paper. The Criminal Heroes Cyberspace And Law That Apply Against their Attacks Introduction I - The nightmares of our computer and their mentality A - Who are hackers and reasons for their attacks - How they hack the systems II - Preventive systems that apply to the hackers and rules of hacking -- U.S. A government precaution against hackers - Hackers ethics and their defence against US law Conclusion.