In the words of computer guru Richard Stallman, "a hacker may be the one who enjoys using his full intelligence, without the need to harm a third party." However, at present, the scope of the work of "hackers" exceeds the bounds of simple leisure and recreation.
The origin of this practice dates back to the early 60s, when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students from prestigious schools are challenged each other to create larger programs than the existing capacity. From that time to now, many things have changed. Hackers activities encompass several categories that define in a more specific way their action field, each punishable under the law.
Crackers are the ones that usually cause more commotion. Cut off from hackers by ethical and moral criteria, specialize basically to cause harm. They are famous for stealing information, deactivate the protections for software, getting into restricted security centers and virus programming.
The phreakers are responsible in exploring the limits and range of telephone networks by manipulating frequencies through technology. These hackers phone, get free calls to anywhere in the world and in stronger terms violate major centrals. In their eagerness to discover the limitations of telephone networks, they end up engaging in situations that can put them behind bars. Currently, phreakers have also targeted the mobile telephony, wireless technologies and VoIP.
Also, ways of hacking have come to accept new terms. The so-called hacktivism is one of them. In this case, hackers use their knowledge to spread political ideologies, generally related to freedom of expression and human rights.
With the technological advances that exist today, it is difficult to foresee the extension that these activities will have in the future. What can be intuited, within the inherent naturalness of the hacker to overcome their own limits, will be presented new challenges for those trying to counter them.
The 10 Great Myths of the Hacker Universe
Kevin Mitnick: It is known worldwide as the “most famous hacker” and for being the first to carry a prison sentence for infiltrating computer systems.
He began his adventures when he was still underage, using a practice known as phone phreaking. Despite not having ever dedicated to programming, Mitnick is totally convinced that, through a telephone and some calls, it can cause severe damage. Today, completely away from their old hobbies and after spending several seasons in the shadow, is dedicated to advice about security to multinational companies through his company “Mitnick Security ‘.
Gary McKinnon: This 41 year old Scotsman, also known as Solo, is considered the biggest hack executor of the history of computing to a military system. Not happy with this, in 2001 and 2002, managed to circumvent computer security from the very NASA and the Pentagon. It is currently in prison and disqualified from access to a computer with internet connection.
Vladimir Levin: This Russian biochemist and mathematician was accused of having committed one of the biggest bank robberies through the technique of cracking. From St. Petersburg, Levin managed to transfer funds estimated at approximately $ 10 million from Citibank accounts in New York that he had opened in different places of the world. He was arrested by Interpol in 1995 at Heathrow airport (England). Although he got to steal more than $ 10 million was only sentenced to 3 years in prison. He is currently free.
Kevin Poulsen: Although today is a journalist and collaborates with the tracking of pedophiles on the Internet, Poulsen carries behind an intense past as a cracker and Phreaker. The event which gave him more notoriety was the taking of telephone lines in Los Angeles in 1990. A radio station offered a Porsche as a reward to anyone who managed to make the call number 102 to the radio. No need to say that Poulsen was the winner.
Timothy Lloyd: In 1996, the computer services company Omega, provider of NASA and the U.S. Navy suffered a loss of about $ 10 million. And it was Tim Lloyd, an employee who was fired several weeks earlier, the guilty of this financial disaster. Lloyd left a computer bomb virtually activated in the codes of the company, which finally detonated July 31 of that year.
Robert Morris: The son of one of the pioneers in the creation of viruses, Morris managed to infect in 1988, nothing more and nothing less, 6000 computers connected to the Arpanet (one of the previous steps of the Internet). He did it from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and for his criminal activities he earned a four-year sentence, which was eventually commuted to community work.
David Smith: Not all hackers can enjoy the privilege of being the creators of the fastest virus that has spread on computers across the globe. David Smith can say it. The father of the Melissa virus in 1999 got 100,000 email accounts infected and collapsed by his evil creation. Smith, who by then was 30 years old, was convicted and released on bail.
Mafiaboy: During February 2000, many of the largest on-line companies in the United States, -such as eBay, Yahoo or Amazon- suffered a technical fault called denial of service, which caused them losses of 1700 million dollars. But did they know that the perpetrator of the attack was a 16 years old Canadian nicknamed MafiaBoy?. Probably not, but they soon find him, all thanks to the arrogance which he spoke about his prank with his friends in his school.
Masters of Deception (MoD): The MoD was a New York cyber gang of hackers who had their heyday in the early 90s. Shielded by different aliases, its biggest attacks were related to the taking of telephone lines and power stations of the recently born Internet. During those years were historic “the battles of hackers” who starred against other groups such as Legion of Doom (LoD), where they tried to defeat each other until the computers couldn’t hold anymore.
Richard Stallman: That hippie-looking New Yorker is one of the most active militants in favor of free software since the early 80s when he was a hacker specialized in artificial intelligence. From MIT he firmly opposed the privatization of the software they used in the laboratories of the institute, and now he created what is today known as GNU (project that calls for free operating systems) and the concept of Copyleft. Popular environments such as Linux use GNU mode and Stallman is currently one of the gurus of the democratization of software.
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