Hacker
1.0 Introduction of hacker
The hacker has acquired many meanings, including a creative programmer, one who illicitly breaks into computers, a novice golfer who digs up the course, a taxicab driver, and ditch-digger. Confusion between the first two interpretations results in the perception that one need be brilliant or creative to break into computers. This may not be true. Indeed, the person we followed was patient and plodding, but hardly showed creative brilliance in discovering new security flaws.
2.0 Background of hacker
The history of hacking is hard to track down. There appears to be as much confusion about the origins of hacking as there is about the term itself. The debate over the history of hacking parallels the debate over the meaning of the term. There are two very distinct arguments on this issue. One side claims that hacking has always referred to those criminals individuals among us who will attempt anything for personal. Hacking has always referred to those who are the pioneers of new fields and constantly explore just for the sake of knowledge claims by the other side. Shapiro (2003) claims that the earliest known use of the word hacker was in a student paper from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He quotes the following from the November 20, 1963 issue and uses this as proof that the word hacker has always referred to someone with malicious intent. The hacking identifies three distinctly different cultures; the first one is hobby. This type of hacking originated in the 20’s. Radio amateurs and electronic enthusiast are the primary members of this group. These hackers began by putting together early computer kits such as the Altair 8800, ABC80 and the ABC800. This began the ideology that hackers possess a through understanding of technology. This type of hacking predates all of the others. The second one is academic. The Model Railroad Club at MIT developed this type of hacking through the sophisticated railroad systems they built in the 50s. The word “hack” first appeared and was used to describe technology based pranks. This group included students from disciplines such as math and eventually, evolved into programming. The third one is network. Today, we would call them phone phreaks because they developed ways to utilize the phone system to make calls. The old phone system used dozen of switches that were controlled by tone commands. Once these switches were discovered they could be used to control the phone system.
3.0 Hacking Today
3.1 Types of Hackers
Hackers can be broken down in several ways. Hackers can be classifying based on their chosen specialty or a combination of both and level of skill. This section has describes the various types of hackers and provides a glimpse of classification by reviewing Guppta, Laliberte & Klevinsky’s (2002) three tiered system. There are some types of hacker: the first one is cracker. This term is used mainly to identify an individual that cracks or breaks into various items and hacker can be cracking security codes, software registrations, or computer systems. The second one is phreaker. Phreaker’s are phone hacker’s and usually concentrate on understanding and manipulating the phone system. There are not always seen that way in the hacking community but it can be malicious. The third one is script Kiddie. These individuals usually comb the Internet looking for pre-written scripts or programs they can use for various purposes. The three tiered system of classification was designed to represent a pyramid. The first-tier contains fairly advanced hackers with the skill level dropping until the last tier is reached. They chose the pyramid to reflect the actual number of hackers that would be in each category. This demonstrates that as skill level drops the number of hackers increase. The first-tier consists of programmers that find vulnerabilities in existing code. These hackers are well educated and possess a deep understanding of computer technology. The second-tier hackers have less skill knowledge in programming than first-tier hackers. They usually have experience with several operating systems, the ability to do general programming, and an in-depth understanding of networking technologies. The third-tier hackers have the lowest skill level and are the most numerous. They are commonly referred to as script kiddies and they download scripts and programs from the Internet to accomplish their hacking. They have potentially to do most harm to a system and do not have an in-depth understanding of the tools they use.
3.2 Malicious of hackers
Through the description and classification of hacker’s one can see that the technical knowledge required to hack can be used to malicious society or to malicious the individual. Malicious hacker’s are sometimes called black-hat hackers by the security profession. Black-hat hackers are those individuals that use their technical skill for personal gain. These include hackers from various disciplines and motivations. These are the malicious hackers who are intent on destruction and profit. They may have personal motivations such as revenge or anger. Sometimes the motivations are simple such as money or notoriety. Media’s misuse of the term and consequences has consistently the term hacker to identify any computer criminal. All too often headlines read that hacker has broken in to a bank or stolen credit card numbers. This misuse of the term has considered consequences for both the industry and the computer professional. The hackers have begun to influence business practices. The industry has been forced to redefine and classify hackers. The security industry is the most heavily influenced by the confusion due to the similarities in hacking and security job functions. Management and administrators of companies are often non-technical. This will influenced by the media criminalizing of hacking, security professionals are now being scrutinized. This excessive scrutiny is slowly eroding the ability of the security professional to perform the necessary tasks to secure the system. The competing company filed charges against the contractor for scanning their network while testing. Hacker commonly do port scans before initiating an attack and security professionals test their systems the same way. The company charged the professional under the anti-hacking laws and attempted to sue for damages. Education of the media and the general public on hacking and security measures could reverse this very dangerous trend.
One type of attack that is of interest to this effort is Denial of services (DOS) attack. Dos attacks can be the result of frustration when efforts to break into a system have failed, for the sense of power it can bring, or ca be used to carry out a grudge against an organization. McClure also feels that DOS attacks will increase due to tools that allow easy launching of DOS attacks, and the opinion that Window NT/95/98 is a favorite, and readily available target. This makes DOS a weapon of choice for terrorists, even if skilled hackers do not care, in general, for this type of attack.
4.0 Conclusion
Through education of the media and public, this misconception can be corrected and further complications avoided. Hacking is the act of exploring technology to expand one’s own knowledge. Hackers retain the responsibility of being or not, just the same as any other professional does.