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Describe a negative aspect of ICTs impact on the information society. Describe how ICT has brought this about and what society is has done in response to it. Abstract Hacking has been and still disease different societies suffer from. The essay aims to provide the reader with knowledge regarding the effects hacking caused to our society, and how the society responded and tried to solve or minimize those effects. Different issues regarding hacking are discussed, such as the motivations that were behind guiding hackers who were at first computer professional to perform unauthorized activities, at the same time a discussion about the types of attacks can be found. The society response to hacking attacks lacks till this moment the ability to stop or completely prevent attacks from happening because as long as security tools are developed, more sophisticated hacking attacks are invented.
Thats why we should start to think about hackers psychology as the main way to prevent and stop attacks by understanding their needs or desires. Introduction The Oxford English Dictionary defines hacking as cut or chop roughly; mangle: cut (ones way) to its present definition as gain unauthorized access (to data in a computer). Banks (1997: 11) defines hacking as something that boring mainframe computer operators did to improve performance and battle boredom. Here banks focuses on boredom as the reason of hacking.
A more technical definition of hacking according to Digital Guards data base (2001) is unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network. Darlington (2001) believes hacking is not limited to accessing data or information but also includes an attack on the privacy of all people. Almost all different opinions agree on the illegality of hacking. On the other hand the word hacker is the agent of hack or hacking and it was defined as a person who enjoys accessing files whether for fun, imposing power or the interest related to the accessed files or data according to Taylor (1999). While Martha (in Taylor, 1993) has a negative view of the hacker as a data lord, a barbarian who takes what he wants. Himanen (2001) defines hacker as any person who performs illegal actions whether they were related to computer or not which means the usage of a device apart from its functionality.
Seems hacking according to Himanen is related to any illegal or unauthorized action. Seebach (1999) finds hacker as a person who feels delighted and full of joy when being able to access a system and break the security utilities but Himanen (2001) doesnt consider hacker as a thief. This definition looks at the hacker as a normal person who is only practicing his knowledge and ability to access what he wants. Williams (2002) goes in the same direction and finds hacker as a knowledgeable person who never stops reading and exploring new technology for the sake of improving himself and might perform illegal actions but his first priority is to look and search for more knowledge. Digital Guards data base (2001) gives the hacker a definition of a person who enjoys exploring the details of computers and how to stretch their capabilities. Clear from the definitions mentioned above that there is a controversy that encounters the judgment and definition of hacking, controversy aroused because its hard to decide exactly what the aim is behind hacking or how to know the mentality of the hacker.
Thats why the ethics and motivation of hackers should be paid attention and discussed then understanding the hacker will be much easier. Who is the Hacker? Hacker is part of the society, a computer professional who wants to use technology for his own benefit Taylor (1999). Seems hackers are experts and professional people who were behind the technology we are enjoying at the moment but at no time and suddenly they began to think about their interests and benefits they can achieve from what they invented. Levy (in Taylor, 1999) described hackers in regard to the history; she divided the life history of hackers into three generations: the first generation of hacking was made of experts of computer programming who never stopped improving their skills then misuse them, the second generation was made of computer hardware developers who found hacking and accessing data and information for free as an appealing idea while the third generation included developers of games architecture.
Recently the fourth generation includes any person who has a computer and some knowledge of programming. Pipkin (1997) classification of hackers depends on the functionality, in other words the classification depends on the way hacker interacts with what is being hacked. Hackers were classified into three different types; the first type is called In-house hacker. In-house hacker is an employee who is responsible of operating and maintaining the system, who interacts immediately with the system as programmer or data entry employee and is aware of all the system security capabilities and gaps and should be the guard of the system but for different motivations he hacks the system and gets what he needs betraying all the trust given to him, the second type is called super hacker who doesnt interact with the system but at the same time monitors the system on daily basis and has an eye on what is going on and what type of data is entered at what time then depending on the entries he decides the moment he should get these information and retrieve them for personal motivations while the third type is called professional hacker and this hacker is very strong and capable of getting any type of data, he has the ability of persuading the user or the operator to provide him with the needed information by programming tricks or user friendly screens and this kind of hackers often gets unique training specially when being used in military tasks as what happened in the cold war. Randall et al. (2000) focus on another type of hackers related to organizations and business, this hacker can be a companys competitor, who is interested in business statistics or future plans. Hacking such information is beneficial to other companies so that they can change their plans in accordance to what was hacked and try to build strategies that cause failure and damage to others.
This leads us to analyze and study the motivations and the thoughts of hackers and the reason behind performing illegal activities. Motivations behind Hacking The motivations behind hacking are an issue that is discussed heavily due to the importance of understanding the hackers psychology and the fuel that encourages him / her to perform such illegal activities, also because hackers view about what they are doing is far different from our views as victims Furnell (2002). Taylor (1999) found that hacking is motivated by the desire of imposing power and improving knowledge, searching for convenience rather than making money. Its a matter of self convenience and satisfaction so thats why motivations differ from one hacker to another but they all share the feel of addiction, curiosity and the need to impose their power while Levy (in Taylor, 1999) discussed the role of own thoughts and ethics in motivating the hacker; she believes that hacker thoughts were the main motivator, the thoughts focused on the freedom of information which means that information should be easily accessed by all people at any time, but since regulations and security tools limited accessibility and began to interfere with the freedom of information, hackers helped people to return back their right of instant access of any source of information. After seventeen years Selwyn and Grand (2001) proved levy right and found that hackers do believe that knowledge and information should be shared and there is no need for information owning because accessing information is one of the basic rights people should have.
Himanen (2001) believes that the thought of information sharing was the reason behind the failure and bankruptcy of many companies that were the target of many hacking attacks in the name of information sharing and defending the community rights. Sterling (2004) believes that information should be shared but with mentioning who is the owner and with the permission of doing that because knowledge should be spread away and not to be limited or restricted and hacking is not the proper way of doing this. Pipkin (1997) on the other hand reveals the challenging part of the hackers personality as the biggest motivation; this means that the hacker feels the joy and excitement when hacking systems that are provided with the almost perfect security tools. Randall et al. (2000) see the excitement as the major reason while Banks (1997) relates hacking to finding jobs which means if hackers were caught breaking into the system, the hacked system owners will offer the hacker highly paid job just for the sake of protecting their system from other intruders. Crucial paradigm (2003) includes that money had never been a motivator but in some cases hackers look for money because that will enable them to create unreal online shopping sites to collect payment details or to gain entry to servers displaying credit cards details. Motivations behind hacking are difficult to capture because its related to each hacker way of thinking or belief or sometimes the type of hack is used as an excuse for the illegal activity as what Pipkin (1997: 8) stated there are many hackers who dont consider themselves criminals because they are not stealing money, credit cards, computer hardware, or anything made of atoms.
Rather, they are only making copies of software and data and utilizing computer resources. And also Thomas and Loader (2000) showed the result of a study done by asking different people about differences between hackers. The majority responded that hackers are not alike and they differ so much from each other since their motivations are different while Furnell (2002) judged hackers depending on the harm they cause whatever was their motivation, because hacking is a disease and should be removed so that the effect of hacker attacks will be minimized. Types of attack Pipkin (1997) lists a number of hacking attacks that are most commonly used in breaking system and causing disruption and damage for services. These attacks can be summarized as following: 1. Software Theft: means software will be hacked by producing illegal copies and selling them without the permission of the owner.
This will result in bankruptcy and failure to companies that spend millions developing and creating software that will be sold later on with the cheapest prices in an unauthorized way. 2. Theft of business secrets: means that trading and business information are stolen for the benefit of other companies. 3. Theft of information: means that all types of information and data are stolen for a particular benefit or self motivation. 4. Denial of service: means that hacker will break into a system and disable different operations and cancel all account so that all users wont be able to access their own information. 5. Terrorism: known as information terrorism and occurs when dataflow is disrupted causing the system to break down and stop providing services for a period of time. On the other hand Crucial paradigm (2003) talks specifically about forms and techniques of computer and network attacks and summarize them in five points as following: 1.
Distributed denial of service attacks: means that the system crashes or stops working for a period of time due to flood of messages or requests. 2. Trojan horse: software installed on computer systems and treated as another software. It shuts down the system or allows you to hack other people. It enables others to enter your system or sets itself when triggered. 3. Viruses: most commonly used, the procedure of viruses is to spread and repeat itself then destroy or attack the system. 4. Websites: use known security holes to track your web browser and then perform harmful activities. 5.
Worms: used for hacking big systems. It uses all available resources to cause overload to the system and difficulty to function. Talking about attacks leads us to the question of what are the characteristics of them. Taylor (1999) listed the main characteristics of hacking attacks in three points: 1. Simplicity: means that the attack should be simple in appearance but the effects are impressive and the results will be as pleasing to the hacker as what he planned for. It means that do your job in a smart and easy way. 2.
Mastery: the methods used in hacking contain sophisticated knowledge which is difficult for anyone to understand. The reason behind mastery is to make sure that the hacker is the only one who can solve the problem being caused. 3. Illicitness: means that the act is against all rules and laws. Hacking should be halted and stopped. To know how to stop it we should know the reason behind the birth of hack, and to know why to stop it we should know the consequences and effects of hacking. ICT and the birth of Hacking Randall et al. (2000: 15) state that as long as there have been computers, there have been hackers.
Its clear here that the birth of computer technology helped in the birth of hackers and computer psychos. Since internet and computer technology had spread away and became available to different people around the globe, information crime including hacking appeared as an enormous problem due to professionals or experts who rea...
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