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HACKERS: A THREAT OR BENEFIT?

Authenticity Statement:
I Karina Zholdasbekova declare that this work is my own original research and writing and that
all original sources used are credited.
Signature_____________________________________
Date_________________________________________

Karina Zholdasbekova
Zhansaya Tatyyeva
Global Perspectives & Project Work
Nazarbayev Intellectual School of Math & Physics
Almaty City, Kazakhstan
2015
Introduction

Annually hackers steal millions of information that cause disastrous consequences to

people and country. You have probably heard about hackers in the newspaper, on the news.
People perceive hackers as a threat to society, but is it so in fact? I want to reveal the life and
activities of the hacker in detail. There are two perspectives on this issue. The first perspective is
that hackers are useful for IT industry. The second perspective is that hackers have a threat to our
information. Many people think computer hackers are criminals. My thesis is that the computer
hackers are not criminals, which I want to show in my research. Majority of hackers are just
people with a real interest in computers.
Aim
The aim of this research is to analyze the issues of hackers on the internet and internet
security. My purpose is to explore whether it is a problem or no by outcomes and answer the
questions: Who are hackers and why they are stealing information? Are they good or bad? What
are the main functions of hackers? By taking data of articles and interview results, answering to
this questions analyze hackers identity.
Methods
I have chosen two research methods, which provide us with qualitative data. They are
primary and secondary. As primary research, an interview was conducted. Two people were
interviewed, two of them are the specialist in the IT field. I have chosen interview to get more
information and opinions about hackers and security. Secondary research is articles and
documentary video. Articles about internet security, theft of the information, hackers, and were
taken from newspapers, reports, academic writing, books.

Context

Nowadays people have a different view to hackers and hacking overall. Especially
different skill people have different perspectives. There is no official definition of hackers and
hacking. Only mass media add false information about hackers to draw audience attention and
get money. The history of hacking began in 1960s at MIT, beginning of the expression "hacker",
where greatly talented people practiced programming in FORTRAN and other computer
languages. Some may obviously name them "geeks" or "nerds" yet these people were, the most
shrewd, individual, and cannily propelled individuals who happen to be the pioneers and
ancestors of the gifted people that are today the genuine programmers. Hacker originally meant
one who makes furniture with an ax. Perhaps because of the blunt nature of that approach, the
word came to mean someone who takes pleasure in an unconventional solution to a technical
obstacle. According to the facts, computer hacking was born in the late 1950s, when members of
MITs Tech Model Railroad Club, obsessed with electric switching, began preparing punch cards
to control an IBM 704 mainframe (Coffey, 2010).
Perspective
The first perspective is that hackers have a danger to our information. The first reason is
that there are many hackers, who want to steal information for any benefit for them, like money
and personal gain it means that you are always under threat. Evidences show that total for the
year 2010 was recorded about 1.5 million breakings. This is 63% of all existing Internet sites
(StopBadware organization, 2012). Today our lives be as documents on our computer harddrives; family photos, bank accounts, reports for work, school papers, passwords, usernames,
calendars, music, movies, private files and etc. All of it could be stealing by hackers or deleted
beyond retrieve by a worm or virus. In the steadily changing world of technology, security is
becoming more and more of an issue. The second reason is that they are illegal. They do crime
and dont care about it. The counter-argument is that there is not only one type of hachers, and
they can be beneficial to society. This continues to the second point of view. The conclusion of
this perspective is that hackers have a threat.

The second perspective is that hackers are the great benefit to the world of technology.
The first reason is that people have different understandings of the meaning of the word "hack".
A hacker does not necessarily cracker banned sites going against the rules. There is a different,
good type of hackers. They breaks security for non malicious reasons, for instance, to test their
own security systems or while working in the security organization that makes security
programming. The second reason is that these hackers advance the scope of computer science.
Do not forget that hackers are the best coders. The counter-argument is that they may use their
skills for bad intentions: crack servers, broke systems for money. However, one type of hackers
is the creators of the set of programs, servers, and networks. They are innovators. If you look at
the facts, Facebook originator Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, is a self-purported programmer,
yet he is a long way from the main programmer whose programming skills helped to develop
computer science. Even the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee was a hacker.
Linus Torvalds, the inventor of Linux was a programmer. They all saw better ways of doing
things. Finally, the conclusion of the second perspective is that hackers are beneficial for society,
especially for IT field.
Results
I interviewed two people. With the help of interview I identified their opinion about
hackers and their experience. The answers to some questions were similar, while in some cases
they had disagreement. Also they revealed another social problem concerning IT industry in
Kazakhstan.
The first respondent shared his knowledge about hacking and hackers. He gave the
definition of the word hack: "Actually the word "hack" has many meanings. The word "hack"
means "to break, crack, hack" only for a certain group of hackers. He also confirmed the
existence of hackers separate: "Hackers are divided into 2 groups: "white hats and black hats".
He said that black hackers, according to his calling black people. They are engaged in a black

business, hacking bank account numbers. White hackers are people that bypass the program to
repair them, engaged in proxy servers.
I got the respondents' opinions about hackers. For example, the first respondent believes
that a hacker is someone who has a good computer logic, is able to parse thousands lowercase
codes. If you know about codes, you can easily break into the system. He also believes that good
programmers can not hang tag "hacker". The second respondent said: "Hackers - people versed
in the codes better than their selves". Speaking about hackers we moved on to Internet security.
Here the views of two of the respondents did not agree. The second respondent noted the low
level of security in Kazakhstan, while the second respondent said that holds 100% secure,
because of his role. According to this it means that in Kazakhstan only big and powerful
companies have a high level of security. The first respondent also gave his opinion on the
internet online safety. He said: "I do not know, as in other countries, but in Kazakhstan on
security does not necessarily bother. Of course, government sites are protected, and not the fact.
Internet security, proxy servers, sites in Kazakhstan at a very low level. Kazakhstan has not yet
developed in terms of IT technologies. Our sites have a very low speed, low level of security."
During the interview surfaced another the social problem like a lack of qualified
personnel in the IT field despite I was not focused to this. Respondents think that Kazakhstan
does not have enough qualified personnel. Education system of Kazakhstan is not able to teach
such specialists. Also the first respondent thinks that Kazakhstan has a low level of internet
security. Respondents confirmed the thesis of my research that computer hackers are not
criminals.

Conclusion

The conclusion all through the essay my thesis was that the computer hackers are not
criminals, which I want to show in my research. Majority of hackers are just people with a real
interest in computers. Two perspectives were analyzed. Both perspectives have been proven.
There are two different groups of hackers. Hackers will be criminals, and also they will be
beneficial. My primary sources coincided with secondary sources. According to facts and some
evidences we can say that hackers are the programmers. They are divided into subgroups: black
and white. But in general, the real meaning of the word hack is not bad. Hackers are great
benefit to the world of technology. I recommend people to not afraid of hackers and do not speak
ill of them, not knowing about the hacker full information.

References
Beattie, A. ( 2014, April 18) 5 Reasons You Should Be Thankful For Hackers.
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Beaver, K. (2004, April). Hacking For Dummies. 1st ed., Vol. 1, p. 378.
Coffey, R. (2010, January 5). 20 Things You Didn't Know About... Computer
Hacking. Retrieved from: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/nov/20things-you-didnt-know-about-computer-hacking
Science & Technology, Europe, US & Canada, China, Hungary (2010,
September 19). Computer hacking: Who benefits? Retrieved from
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2010/09/20109199475950547
7.html

Shinal, J. (2015, January 12). First Take: Shades of gray among black-hat, white-hat hacker.
Retrieved from:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/shinal/2015/01/12/black-hat-whitehat-hackers/21660343/
StopBadware organization. (2012). Retrieved from
https://www.stopbadware.org/files/compromised-websites-an-ownersperspective.pdf
Thomas, A., Eduardo, L., Normand, A,. (2013, April 13). Hacker Hat Colors Explained: Black Hats,
White Hats, and Gray Hats. Retrieved from: http://www.howtogeek.com/157460/hackerhat-colors-explained-black-hats-white-hats-and-gray-hats/