How Has Computer Hacking Interfered Modern Society Essay

How has computer hacking inferred modern society? In this passage I will be talking briefly about the fundamentals of computer hacking from the past to the present. Computer hacking has changed more over time resulting in computer emergences to corporate system shutdowns. This research paper will be talking about three major parts of computer hacking. The first concept of hacking is the origin of creation. The next part will be how hacking has affect on the present-day society. Finally, the last piece of information will be going over the future of system hacking. What is a hack you may ask your self but not have an answer or one word phrase for the term? A hack has always been a kind of shortcut or modification, a way to bypass or rework the standard operation of an object or system. The first computer hackers emerge at MIT. They borrow their name from a term to describe members of a model train group at the school who hack the electric trains, tracks, and switches to make them perform faster and differently. A few of the members transfer their curiosity and rigging skills to the new mainframe computing systems being studied and developed on campus. Hacking groups begin to form. Among the first are Legion of Doom in the United States, and Chaos Computer Club in Germany. The movie â€Å"War Games† introduces the public to hacking. A computer hacker intends to ruin businesses performing an act much more unprincipled than an enthusiastic biologist ‘hacking’ away at work or theory. The truth is that computer hacking is in fact easy in the general sense, but more consideration must be given. Some aspects of hacking are used in everyday life and you may not know that accessing wireless internet from another person’s account is considered wireless hacking even though your borrowing there connection. During the 1970’s, a different kind of hacker appeared: the phreaks or phone hackers. They learned ways to hack the telephonic system and make phone calls for free. Within these group of people, a phreaker became famous because a simple discovery. John Draper, also known as Captain Crunch, found that he could make long distance calls with a whistle. He built a blue box that could do this and the Esquire magazine published an article on how to build them. Fascinated by this discovery, two kids, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, decided to sell these blue boxes, starting a business friendship which resulted in the founding of Apple. By the 1980’s, phreaks started to migrate to computers, and the first Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) appeared. BBS are like the yahoo groups of today, were people posted messages on any kind of topic. The BBS used by hackers specialized in tips on how to break into computers, how to use stolen credit card numbers and share stolen computer passwords. It wasn’t until 1986 that the U. S. government realized the danger that hackers represented to the national security. As a way to counteract this menace, the Congress passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, making computer breaking a crime across the nation. During the 1990’s, when the use of the internet became widespread around the world, hackers multiplied, but it wasn’t until the end of the decade that system’s security became mainstream among the public. Today, we are accustomed to hackers, crackers, viruses, Trojans, worms and all of the techniques we need to follow to combat them. Hackers were classified into three unusual types the first category is called In-house hacker. In-house hacker is an employee who is responsible for operating and maintaining the system, who interacts immediately with the system as a programmer or data entry employee and is aware of all the system security capabilities and gaps. He 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 doesn’t 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. Theses are just brief ways hackers have impacted the modern world we all live in. Within the past year there have been two major cases right in the area. Both involve extensive damage, and both are currently in court. The closest case is that of Thomas Crandall, otherwise known as St. Elmo’s Fire. Crandall is accused of estroying attendance and discipline records in a computer at Central Technical and Vocational Center. Police charge that Crandall used a personal computer at his home to access the computer. He is also accused of doing $25,000 in damage to files at Waste Management Inc. of Oakbrook, Ill. Crandall’s attorney claims that many other students also had access to the computer, and that to single out Crandall in unfair. Hackers are responsible of the huge development in computer and internet technology, but these days we consider them as thieves and intruders who penetrated our own privacy and used the achievements they were behind for their own benefit. Hackers have different opinions and motivations. However, they all share the spirit of challenge and always trying to prove their capabilities of doing what all believe is impossible maybe because they were mistreated, or doubts surrounded their abilities and past achievements. Hackers believe that information should be shared and they fight against information owning. Effects that hacking caused and still causing to the society can’t be ignored. Hacking nowadays is taking new phases and the danger is increasing because we are now living in a society that runs by ICT, and any attack to the ICT especially in advanced countries will cause vital consequences. ICT still lacks a powerful security tools that are capable of tracking, catching hackers, and protecting computer systems from their attacks. My own view is that the best way to protect ICT from hackers is to study their psychology and try to understand their way of thinking, because hackers are human beings, who have two sides; evil and good, and they used to show their good side but suddenly they turned to be evil. The reasons which caused the transformation from good to evil individuals should be studied and given the highest priority in the war against hackers because since we put our hands on the cause, we can fix it to reach for better effects. People can grocery shop, earn degrees, receive bank statements and pay bills from their laptop or PC. The possibilities are endless when it comes to simplifying life with the help of the World Wide Web, but at the same time possibilities are endless hackers to complicate your life with cyber crimes. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a hacker as both â€Å"an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer† and â€Å"a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system. † Those three reasons I have stated above were the hackings past present and future. Until technology stops growing the possibility of hackers is limited less.