Hackers

I was on surfing the internet looking for songs that I can download for free since my mom banned me from using Kazaa, a software program used to share music and files over the internet. After about an hour of searching with "Google", I came across a site that looked like it was the real deal. It was titled "Warez", so I clicked the link and it took me to a website that had even more links to tons of other websites. Each link had a specific type of music genre on them. I decided I wanted to download some Techno music, so I clicked the link, and it opened up a new window. This new window had the address of www.iwantsearch.com. I advise you, the reader, to never go to this site. It was a trick website that immediately downloaded adware, spyware, malware, and free links to win big cash now! In case you don't know, these are basically just ads like the kind on TV, only these slow down your computer and get annoying fast.

Without delay, I ran a spyware remover program called "SpyBot Ð'- Search and Destroy". The program immediately found hundreds of brand new spyware that had just been downloaded without my consent. I ran the program to delete all the adware, but my computer crashed because there was too much adware installed. After I restarted my computer, the program ran automatically, knowing that it accidentally crashed before. It deleted most of the files, but I had to delete some of the other files on my own.

I was so jaded, I couldn't take it. My evil side got the better of me, and told me to hack the place that gave me the adware. I ran a CD I bought that had some hacking programs on it, and I began to work at hacking and destroying the website and its server. The end of this story comes later, but now this whole thing leads to a few questions: Why do hackers do what they do? And: How can hackers affect the world of computers? And an even scarier question like: Could hackers gain control of our government's systems?

People don't know that hackers are actually the good guys. They are on the side of justice and peace. All the things about hackers getting into the government's computers, creating and releasing viruses, destroying websites and so on, are just media hype! The media should really be referring to the people who do such damage, as "Crackers". This was the original name used for the bad hackers. To put it simply, Hackers were and still are, the good guys; they help keep internet security in its place. But there are many more names for hackers who hack different things: Phreaker Ð'- Phone hacker, Programmers Ð'- people who write programs, Coders- people who write code for programs, and many more.

Some of the first hackers in history were nascent hackers, maybe even Phreakers. "The brand-new Bell Telephone, just practical jokers, teenage boys hired to run the switchboards that had an unfortunate predilection for disconnecting and misdirecting calls. Now you know why the first transcontinental communications network hired female operators." (http://TLC.discovery.com)

That's just all about Phreakers though and some history on the first hackers. This day in age, hackers have to keep up with the technology advances as do the crackers. The good news is that they are always at least one step ahead of the Crackers. Another thing I should mention is this: the original term of hacking came along decades ago. It was a technical term explained thusly: To hack into something is to manipulate it in a way that was not meant to be. The term Crackers came from people trying to crack passwords and codes to get into restricted areas. As you now are probably aware of, Crackers are the bad guys: they try to get into your computer system, release viruses, and try to hack things for the malicious purposes of destroying them. And yes, it is true that people often mistake crackers for hackers.

Crackers have been around for decades as well as hackers. The official definition of Crackers can be defined as, "Someone who trys to gain unauthorized access to a computer, either for fun or malicious or fraudulent purposes." (www.thocp.net). This answers our first question about why a "hacker", now called a Cracker, does what he does. Crackers either want to just have fun, are curious, want get back at someone, or just do damage to someplace on the net. The second earliest recorded history of hackers is in 1960, when the MIT technologies institute became a breeding ground for hackers. They were programmers who just learned about all this new technology and knew it was going to be big.

Referring back to the hackers always being a step ahead of crackers is this motto: A hacker's job is never done. "Hacking used to be considered almost identical to the Protestant Ethic" Ð'- The Hacker Ethic pg. 8. A hacker's job is to look for loopholes, or exploits in all types of things: programs, software, networks, and many other things. It is also to protect against viruses, worms (mainly like an e-mail virus), Trojans (named after the Trojans that took over Troy, these can sneak into your computer without you knowing), and even worse: Nukes (One of these being set off on your computer and it is like a digital nuclear bomb going off).

As Hubert H. Humphrey said from Steal This Computer Book 3, "Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man."(73). Although freedom is a virus I am willing to fight for, one specific type of virus is less wanted by Americans: computer viruses. Many people don't know what they are and how they can affect the performance of a computer. They are bad but not malicious, unless it was programmed to do something like slow down you computer or other damage to make you lose data that you need. Trojans however, can be terrible. They can give someone else control of your computer so they could delete important files, steal information, and the most amusing thing I've heard of so far, opening and closing your CD drive. As you sit there and watch your CD drive opening and closing, you just have to laugh. Although Trojans are not nearly as funny as this next thing sounds. It could also slow down your memory, delete some files slowly, or just be there on your computer shutting it down just because it feels like it. On a scale of one to ten, Trojans are at a level 8 meaning it's a real pain to take off your system, but it may, notice I said may, not do harmful damage. Nukes, however, are by far, the worst. Nukes work as a program that can literally fry a hard drive. When you run it, it overloads the hard drive with data. After the program has completed its task, you can see a small sizzle of smoke come out of your computer and that means your computer will never turn on again. Yes literally, a small little smoke cloud will bellow out from your case.

Luckily