Hackers/Hacking

[UltraSonic]

So what's your opinion on them?  What's your point of view on those who can seemingly have their way on the information superhighway?

This day in age, it's more difficult to hack a system than in the past because people have become acutely aware that it can be done, and simply buy programs to prevent it.  My question to you though, if nothing is stolen, or damaged.  Simply observed, is this a crime?  Personally I'd have to say it depends on what's observed.

Surely most if not all of you still around have heard of the infamous Kevin Mitnick, whom for making some free bus rides, possibly some free phone calls and cracking a system to view source code served a harsher sentence than most child molesters.

Most of you know the story.  Not only did he spend a considerable amount of time in prison but was also placed on a probation forbidding him to use/own anything but a landline phone for a considerable amount of time.

Does the punishment really fit the alleged crime, or was society simply scared out of their minds because of their own ignorance?

I realize that Kevin Mitnick is old news, however hacking exploits still occur and those who are caught are punished with severe disproportion to the "crime" committed.  Furthermore, having recently become part of a small team of network admins at a chapel sponsored club out here at Ramstein, I've started learning a lot as far as this trade is concerned.

No worries, my intentions aren't black hatted at all, however more related to the security of the network, even if I do intend to use some unorthodox means to do so.  But I digress, what to the still remaining members of this place think on the topic?

[Chaos Sky]

Let me answer your question with another question (gotta love those).

I relate the viewing of anything on my PC (Personal Computer, emphasis on personal) as I would a house. Its my house and I live there. If i'm not there and someone breaks in, even if they dont steal anything, is still wrong. A thief can go through your personal possessions and leave you with a sense of breached security, and still leaves you with the vulnerability that if s/he got in once, s/he can get in again and next time perhaps cause harm.

Same thing with computers.

I'd love to see someone hack my computer though. What a waste. Nothing but music and 3D rendered crap =p

On a similar note, hacking is good or bad depending on whose hands its in. However I guess you wouldnt really need to have 'good' hacking if it werent for the bad kind? Something like that.

[UltraSonic]

With that particular point of view, most hackers would be guilty of sneaking their way past the front desk at your ISP.  Most hackers who'd be accessing your computer aren't interested in your files, or even damaging your files.  Their sole interest is your computers ability to send a ping.  It's called a DDoS (distributed denial of service) Attack.  One hacker gets a trojan to spread to thousands of computers that lies dormant, does absolutely nothing until said hacker sends a signal out to the program, however many machines he's infected it with.  And then all that program does is ping it's little heart out at whatever IP address the hacker specifies.

Of course such resources are available en masse from the Russian Business league without infecting someones personal computer, so any Script Kiddie with a big enough wallet could also attempt a DDoS.

That's the dark side of hacking.  I should remind you that hacking exploits have led to the capture of pedophiles trying to solicit the underage via myspace, (That's the second time those people have come up in this topic, putting the kibosh on that certainly)

The NSA Employs "hackers" to both defend and to break into their systems, to ensure information and system integrity.

One must bear in mind though that there are several types of "hackers"  There are the Black Hats and the White Hats (That's kind of self explanatory), there are the Phreakers, the Crackers, The Script Kiddies, etc.

[Chaos Sky]

Which almost ties back into what I said. People hack for both good and evil purposes. I relate it to firearms in a way. You have a gun for protection in case someone else has a gun. Take the bad guy with the gun away, or said wrongful hacker, and theres no need for the good ones. (at least none I can see). But this is all to my frightfully untrained eye, I never really looked into hacking and anti hacking news / information / know-how.

[UltraSonic]

It's best described as frightfully informative.

[Chaos Sky]

I think the funny thing about posting in this topic was my C drive went down a day later. Computer guy said hacker / virus, or possibly just wear and tear. Pretty sure it was wear and tear, because reformatting your drive, while healthy, can wear your disc down if you do it too much. And its probably been reformated 20 some odd times due to horrible Californian people putting it together and giving me bad information. Oi =\ It was a freaking RAPTOR too.

FML.

[UltraSonic]

7200 RPMs of fast access glory backed by reputation.  Fortunately there's very few viruses that attack hardware, and most of them are pretty old.  Added to your AV software long ago.

Personally I don't keep these on hand.  I suppose though, that I'm not completely against their use.  If someone's trying to break into your network, then you can shoot back.  My router's security log is constantly registering attempts at unauthorized access.

[UltraSonic]

Alright, my Air Force buddies and I are planning a trip to DEFCON this upcoming July.  It's a Hacking/Computer Security convention in Las Vegas.  Fee is 120 bucks not including hotel costs, and food, and transportation.  Now then, due to the nature of the trip that my buddies and I are organizing it would be logistically impossible to have forum members jumping in at the rendezvous points along the journey.  However meeting up in Vegas would be easy.  I realize it'll be an expensive trip, but is anybody else interested?

[MrFahrenheit]

Best convention name ever.

[UltraSonic]

Here I sit at Defcon 18, and one of the biggest things I'm becoming aware of is just how much I really don't know.  For both CP's security, and my own, I'm typing this up on my phone and not logging in on the Defcon network.  While my firewalls can hold, I can't be sure that my transmissions are encrypted as I didn't set up a VPN before heading out here.  More will follow.