Hacking

1
Hacking

• Social Ill
• Or
• Social Good?

2
LOpht

• HacK CounTerHaCk by Bruce Gottlieb
• L0pht,a group of blue collar hackers, continually
  hacks into internal systems of commercial
  agencies and then exploits the weaknesses of
  these systems on their web page
• This disclosure of information is taken advantage
  of by two completely different sides of the hack
  counter hack relationship

3
Social Good

• By making the flaws known, both computer hackers
  and network administrators benefit
  
• Network administrators use the website to
  discover and alleviate the problem preventing
  future hacker exploits
  
• Hacking does not lead to destruction on cyber
  space but instead promotes technological growth
  
• Hacking is a form of social communication or
  protest
  
• For example A statement made by a hacker can
  easily be compared to that made by an anti-war
  protest

4
Social Good

• Therefore, the relationship between hacker and
  counter hacker go as follows The hacker will
  infiltrate the website then the website will
  upgrade its security programs and finally the
  hacker will attack again pointing out more
  weaknesses that the website will then work to
  alleviate.
• Hacking should also be held to that regard As a
  form of protest on the internet to elevate the
  ideals and hopes of individuals who wish to be
  heard.

5
Social Ill

• A problem with Internet hacking is that it can
  delay the consumer output, thus making it more
  expensive and time consuming to purchase a
  certain product
• An example illustrating this opinion is cited in
  HacK CounTerHaCk when Bruce Gottlieb, the
  author, cites a conversation with a Microsoft
  employee, L0pht is not without critics, of
  course. While LOpht puts on the Robin Hood mantle
  of fighting the big computer companies. The
  employee continues on to tell Bruce, "Their only
  victims are the little people that are
  customers.

6
Social Ill

• Identity Theft
• a Drivers license, social security number, and
  date of birth, all which are vital to ones
  self-identity, are easily accessible to a hacker
  
• Financial information is subject to exploitation
• Secret information such as credit card
  information and history, and banking account
  information are all up for the taking

7
Social Ill Or Social Good?

• In conclusion, there are both good and bad points
  to the hacking issue. However, we feel that
  online hacking is socially good
  
• As a group we weighed both the positive and
  negative effects of online hacking and from what
  we have seen and read from the articles we have
  concluded that hacking can work toward our
  advantage as a society most of the time, in rare
  cases does it become a disadvantage to us. Like
  with many things there is a down side to hacking,
  commonly when its performed by the wrong people,
  but over all it has allowed our society to grow
  more successfully and gain more knowledge when it
  comes to computers and the web.

8
Questions