5 Reasons You Should Be Thankful For

Hackers
By Andrew Beattie , April 18, 2014

Takeaway: Hackers have a bad reputation, but these tech renegades actually do serve a
purpose.

Hackers are an interesting subculture and, as such, they get a fair bit of attention from the
media. The idea of a teenager breaking into high security databases is fascinating and
more than a little terrifying. However, hackers aren’t all teenagers, nor are they all focused
on breaking into places they shouldn’t be. In this article, we’ll look at some reasons why the
general public can actually be thankful for hackers.

The White Hat Hackers

The first reason people should be thankful for hackers is that not all hackers are fixated on
breaking into your computer and stealing your data. In fact, hackers see themselves as a
group with several subgroups. The black hat hackers are the ones who break into systems
for material gain. Gray hat hackers, on the other hand, are in it for personal recognition
mostly, but they still break important rules. It's the white hat hackers that really do good
work, however, by hacking into sites in order to help those sites test and improve their
security so that the other types of hackers can’t gain access so easily. All three groups use
the same methods, but their motives are very different.

Hackers Helped Make Your PC

Going back to the early days of the personal computer, many of the members of the
Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley would have been considered hackers in
modern terms in that they pulled things apart and put them back together in new and
interesting ways. Although there were no secure sites for these early computer hobbyists to
hack, many in the group were also phone phreakers, who cracked the telephone network
by using whistles and blue boxes to make free calls whenever they pleased.

This desire to explore systems and find out how they worked made many of these proto-
hackers more knowledgeable about the different technologies available - and their
shortcomings - than even those who created those technologies. Two former phreakers,
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, built Apple; others, like the legendary Captain Crunch,
went on to design software and play a role in the development of Silicon Valley culture.
(Learn more about the history behind Apple in Creating the iWorld: A History of Apple.)

Hackers Are Some Of The Best Coders

Just as many of the early computer enthusiasts turned out to be great at designing new
computers and programs, many people who identify themselves as hackers are also
amazing programmers. This trend of the hacker as the innovator has continued with
the open-source software movement. Much of this open-source code is produced, tested
and improved by hackers – usually during collaborative computer programming events,
which are affectionately referred to as "hackathons." Even if you never touch a piece of
open-source software, you still benefit from the elegant solutions that hackers come up with
that inspire (or are outright copied by) proprietary software companies.

Hackers Have Done Some Amazing Things

Hacking is something that hackers don’t grow out of as much as they find avenues to turn it
into an actual career. In addition to becoming security specialists, hackers go on to be star
programmers and even found their own companies. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg,
for example, is a self-professed hacker, but he is far from the only hacker whose
programming skills helped launch major ventures. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux was
a hacker too, as was Tim Berners-Lee, the man behind the World Wide Web. The list is
long for the same reason the list of hackers turned coders is long – they all saw better ways
of doing things.

Hackers Are Vocal Critics

The last reason to be thankful for hackers is a controversial one. For the average user, it
can be difficult to tell right away if a new version of software is actually an improvement, or
a quickly cobbled together grab for more of our money. Hackers, however, seem to take
offense when a company releases subpar software or a buggy OS, and makes these
issues public in a way that the average consumer can’t. Every time a hacker rips through a
security gap or flaw in a system, this draws attention to the fact that the company didn’t,
perhaps, take enough care in creating the product. This, in turn, encourages most
companies to be more careful in the future – something that benefits consumers in a
roundabout way.

The Takeaway
Black hat hackers are always going to be seen as a menace to society, and in many cases
they should be. However, many white hat hackers and even some grey hat and reformed
black hat hackers have done great things for technology and the Internet. In truth, hackers
are almost in the same situation as motorcycle enthusiasts in that the existence of a few
motorcycle gangs with real criminal operations tarnishes the image of the entire subculture.
You don’t need to go out and hug the next hacker you meet, but it might be worth
remembering that the word hacker doesn’t equal criminal – at least not all the time.
I’ve always been intrigued by hackers. Maybe I’ve seen one too many movies —
from Hackers and The Net toGamer and Tron: Legacy. But what can I say? They’re fun
escapism. And in virtually every one of them, a hacker plays a good guy. So naturally, I‘ve
assumed most hackers have noble motives.

Let’s take a look. First, hackers can generally fit into three basic categories:

Legal (called “white hats” or “blue hats”): These are the guys that test the networks of
major companies to see if they can get past their security defenses. They make sure their
companies aren’t vulnerable to attacks from the bad hackers.

Illegal (“black hats”): These guys range from young ne’er do-wells looking for serial
numbers to their favorite computer games to full-on international criminals who make a
living by breaking in to systems without permission. They can steal money or information.

Ideological (“Hacktivists”): These guys are an interesting group. Groups like LulzSec and
Anonymous claim to have specific beliefs, usually about information or privacy. You could
also lump governments into this group.

While hackers can cross all of these lines, this last group gets the most attention, and
probably because of the grey area they inhabit. LulzSec and Anonymous are two groups
that are generally more famous.

Lulz Security is/was a hacking organization consisting of around 60 people who hacked
PBS, Sony PlayStation, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The latter, they
claim, they hit because they were against Arizona’s law targeting illegal immigrants. Sony,
however, they hacked to show us not to trust our information to companies that are easily
hacked. “Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these
simple attacks?” they asked. Now we’re talking about those shades of grey.

Following in Lulz’s footsteps came “Anonymous.” This group claimed to be a protector of

the Internet — in other words, anyone who tries to censor or control the Web was on their
hit list. This opened up a lot of people to possible hacking. And frankly, it started to scare a
lot of people.

But recently, the group has taken a completely different turn. It’s a dangerous one, but it
certainly suggests they’re the good guys.
First, they created an update of a program called “Tor” that is used for anonymous web
surfing. Tor was also being used by unscrupulous people like pedophiles exchanging child
porn. No cool, said Anonymous. It should only be used for the war against Al-Qaeda — oh,
and free speech. So they set up a sting and captured the names of almost 200 of these
individuals, then published them.

Most recently, they’ve taken on a much bigger and meaner fish: the Mexican drug cartels.
Groups like the Zetas are the real life incarnation of the mafia portrayed in the Godfather.
Except for the rules. They kill you, your family, and your friends if you cross them.

Essentially, one of their own, a hacker named Barrett Brown, was kidnapped by the Zetas
and Anonymous is striking back.

It takes hacking to a whole new level of danger — one that you have to admire. So maybe
hackers aren’t so bad after all.

Camila Souza

@cfunk305

November 19, 2014 4:30 pm

113 Shares

For the purpose of simplifying complex issues and characters in our society, the media has
successfully vilified hackers today. Just look at the news in the past year and notice how
hackers have been portrayed as the perpetrators of everything that is wrong with online
security. But is this really a fair depiction of hackers?

“Hacking is a very important skill set in our society, because these are the experts in how the
systems work and how the systems fail. The people who use that expertise for bad are bad
people. People who use that expertise for good are good people,” said Robert Steele, CEO of
Open Source Solution in an interview in PBS.

One example of using their skills for good happened this week: After the Ku Klux Klan
threatened the protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, the internet activist group Anonymous took
over the organization’s twitter account.

Screen Shot 2014-11-19 at 11.45.40 AM

Hacking is about exploring. Hackers discover cyber corners that are hidden and find different
solutions to problems. This gives hackers a lot of power, and that scares everyone else.
Sometimes, this knowledge is used to do something bad, and we constantly hear about these
particular cases in the news. From Jonathan James (aka. cOmrade) to Edward Snowden, these
are the only faces presented to audiences as to what hacking and hackers are. It shouldn’t be.

“They’ve uncovered corruption, abuse. They’ve hacked popes and politicians, and I think their
effect is larger than simple denial of service attacks that take down websites or even leak
sensitive documents. I think that, like Robin Hood, they are in the business of redistribution,
but what they are after isn’t your money. It’s not your documents. It’s your attention,” said
Keren Elazari Analyst for Gigaom Research in her TED Talk earlier this year, Hackers: Internet’s
Immune System.

Elazari is a security expert, and a key member of the Israeli Cyber Security & Hacking scene and
has put forward a compelling case that outlines how there are more cases of hackers doing
good, but they are overshadowed by those who do bad.

“Hackers represent an exceptional force for change in the 21st century. This is because access
to information is a critical currency of power, one which governments would like to control, a
thing they attempt to do by setting up all-you-can-eat surveillance programs, a thing they need
hackers for, by the way. And so the establishment has long had a love-hate relationship when
it comes to hackers, because the same people who demonize hacking also utilize it at large,”
said Elazari.

Learn about some examples of how hackers have used their skills for good, acting as
watchdogs rather than criminals.

Hackers: Are They Good

or Bad?
The difference between destruction and protection

By Wendy Boswell
Web Search Expert
First, what is a hacker?

The term "hacker" can mean two different things:

Someone who is very good at computer programming, networking, or other related computer
functions and loves to share their knowledge with other people

Someone who uses their expert computer skills and knowledge to gain unauthorized access to
systems, corporations, governments, or networks.

What most people think of when they hear the term "hacker"

The word "hacker" does not bring the best of thoughts to most people’s minds.

The popular definition of a hacker is someone who intentionally breaks into systems or
networks to illegally procure information or infuse chaos into a network for the express
purpose of control. Hackers are not usually associated with doing good deeds; in fact, the term
"hacker" is often synonymous with "criminal" to the public.

CONTINUE READING BELOW OUR VIDEO

Ways You're Probably Screwing Up Your Computer

0:00

3:04

These are black-hat hackers or crackers, the folks we hear about on the news creating chaos
and pulling down systems. They maliciously enter secure networks and exploit flaws for their
own personal (and usually malicious) gratification.

There are different kinds of hackers

However, in the hacker community, there are subtle class differences that the general public is
not aware of. There are hackers who break into systems that don’t necessarily destroy them,
who have the public’s best interest at heart. These people are white-hackers, or "good
hackers." White-hat hackers are those individuals who break into systems to point out security
flaws or bring attention to a cause. Their intentions are not necessarily to wreak havoc, but to
do a public service.

Hacking as a public service

White-hat hackers are also known as ethical hackers; they are hackers who are working from
the inside of a company, with the company’s full knowledge and permission, who hack into the
company’s networks to find flaws and present their reports to the company. Most white-hat
hackers are employed by actual computer security agencies, such as Computer Sciences
Corporation (CSC).

As stated on their site, "more than 1,000 CSC information security experts, including 40 full-
time "ethical hackers," support clients in Europe, North America, Australia, Africa and Asia.
Services include consulting, architecture and integration, evaluation and assessment,
deployment and operations, and training. The deployment of ethical hackers to test the
vulnerability of computer networks is one of the many ways CSC can help clients deal with
ongoing security threats." These cyber security experts look for flaws in the system, and repair
them before the bad guys can exploit them.

Getting a job as a hacker

Although white-hat hackers are not necessarily recognized as much as they should be, more
and more companies are looking for people who can stay ahead of the individuals determined
to bring their systems down. By hiring white-hat hackers, companies have a fighting chance.
Even though these programming gurus were once considered outcasts in the public eye, many
hackers now hold critical and extremely high-paying jobs with corporations, governments, and
other organizations. Of course, not all security breaches can be prevented, but if companies
hire people who are able to spot them before they become critical, then half the battle is
already won. White-hat hackers have their jobs cut out for them, because black-hat hackers
are not going to stop doing what they are doing. The thrill of penetrating systems and bringing
down networks is just too much fun, and of course, the intellectual stimulation is unmatched.
These are very smart people who have no moral qualms about seeking out and destroying
computer infrastructures. Most companies that manufacture anything to do with computers
recognize this,and are taking appropriate security measures to prevent hacks, leaks, or other
security mishaps.

Examples of famous hackers

Black Hat

Anonymous: A loosely associated group of hackers from all over the world, with meeting
points on various online message boards and social networking forums. They are most known
for their efforts to encourage civil disobedience and/or unrest through defamation and
defacement of various websites, denial of service attacks, and the online publishing of
personal information.

Jonathan James: Infamous for hacking into the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and stealing
software code.

Adrian Lamo: Known for infiltrating several high-level organizations' networks, including
Yahoo, the New York Times, and Microsoft to exploit security flaws.

Kevin Mitnick: Convicted for multiple criminal computer crimes after evading authorities on an
extremely well-publicized chase for two and a half years. After serving time in federal prison
for his actions, Mitnick founded a cyber security firm to help businesses and organizations
keep their networks safe.

White Hat

Tim Berners-Lee: Best known for inventing the World Wide Web, HTML, and the URL system.

Vinton Cerf: Known as the "father of the Internet", Cerf has been highly instrumental in
creating the Internet and the Web as we use it today.

Dan Kaminsky: Highly respected security expert best known for his role in uncovering the Sony
BMG copy protection rootkit scandal.

Ken Thompson: Co-created UNIX, an operating system, and the C programming language.
Donald Knuth: One of the most influential people in the field of computer programming and
theoretical computer science.

Larry Wall: Creator of PERL, a high level programming language that can be used for a wide
variety of tasks.

This isn't a matter of opinion is definition Cracker means to violate a program and do damage.
Hacking is when you look in a program and modify it without intent to damage the computer.
There are two different type of hackers. Black hat hackers which are people who steal
information, crack into systems and break things. Then there are white hat hackers that create
all the security systems in the world. If no one did any hacking the currently technology would
be extremely vulnerable now.

If you think a little they are actually good. Hackers could support security systems, and some
have created amazing things such as Mark Zukerberg the founder of Facebook and many other
people which you could search up anywhere.Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux was a hacker
too, as was Tim Berners-Lee, the man behind the World Wide Web. So yea that's how they are
good

Hackers are good. While they do things that are illegal, they are necessary to make our
computer programs stronger. When they point out the flaws in a program or a software, they
allow that developer to fix it, making the program better for every one. Even though they do
bad things, the good outweighs the bad.

Discurso

When you hear the word hacker, you probably think of a nerdy, teen-aged boy sitting behind
a computer with sinister plans for his attack flowing through the keystrokes of his fingers.
You probably think of a techno-criminal defacing websites, shutting down computer systems,
stealing money or confidential information-basically a threat to society. But these
descriptions may describe someone else enterely. Many in the computer community contend
that this criminal description defines crackers. Hackers, on the other hand, are actually
people who enjoy learning how computer systems work, and bettering themselves and the
computer community with the information that they gain from their learning. So if there are
non-criminal (hackers) and criminal hackers (crackers), is it fair to label both hackers and
crackers as hackers?

Four years ago, a security researcher, or, as most people would call it, a hacker, found a
way to literallymake ATMs throw money at him. His name was Barnaby Jack, and this
technique was later called "jackpotting" in his honor.

0:33I'm here today because I think we actually need hackers. Barnaby Jack could have
easily turned into a career criminal or James Bond villain with his knowledge, but he chose
to show the world his research instead. He believed that sometimes you have to demo a
threat to spark a solution. And I feel the same way. That's why I'm here today.

1:03We are often terrified and fascinated by the power hackers now have. They scare
us. But the choices they make have dramatic outcomes that influence us all. So I am here
today because I think we need hackers, and in fact, they just might be the immune system
for the information age. Sometimes they make us sick, but they also find those hidden
threats in our world, and they make us fix it.

1:40I knew that I might get hacked for giving this talk, so let me save you the effort. In true
TED fashion, here is my most embarrassing picture. But it would be difficult for you to find
me in it, because I'm the one who looks like a boy standing to the side. I was such a nerd
back then that even the boys on the Dungeons and Dragons team wouldn't let me join. This
is who I was, but this is who I wanted to be:Angelina Jolie. She portrayed Acid Burn in the
'95 film "Hackers." She was pretty and she could rollerblade, but being a hacker, that made
her powerful. And I wanted to be just like her, so I started spending a lot of time on hacker
chat rooms and online forums. I remember one late night I found a bit of PHP code. I didn't
really know what it did, but I copy-pasted it and used it anyway to get into a password-
protected site like that. Open Sesame. It was a simple trick, and I was just a script kiddie
back then, but to me, that trick, it felt like this, like I had discovered limitless potential at my
fingertips. This is the rush of power that hackers feel. It's geeks just like me discovering
they have access to superpower,one that requires the skill and tenacity of their intellect, but
thankfully no radioactive spiders.

3:20But with great power comes great responsibility, and you all like to think that if we had
such powers, we would only use them for good. But what if you could read your ex's
emails, or add a couple zeros to your bank account. What would you do then? Indeed,
many hackers do not resist those temptations, and so they are responsible in one way or
another to billions of dollars lost each year to fraud, malware or plain old identity
theft, which is a serious issue. But there are other hackers, hackers who just like to break
things, and it is precisely those hackers that can find the weaker elements in our world and
make us fix it.

4:06This is what happened last year when another security researcher called Kyle
Lovett discovered a gaping hole in the design of certain wireless routers like you might
have in your home or office. He learned that anyone could remotely connect to these
devices over the Internet and download documents from hard drives attached to those
routers, no password needed. He reported it to the company, of course, but they ignored
his report. Perhaps they thought universal access was a feature, not a bug, until two
months ago when a group of hackers used it to get into people's files. But they didn't steal
anything. They left a note: Your router and your documents can be accessed by anyone in
the world. Here's what you should do to fix it. We hope we helped. By getting into people's
files like that, yeah, they broke the law, but they also forced that company to fix their
product.

5:07Making vulnerabilities known to the public is a practice called full disclosure in the
hacker community,and it is controversial, but it does make me think of how hackers have
an evolving effect on technologies we use every day. This is what Khalil did. Khalil is a
Palestinian hacker from the West Bank, and he found a serious privacy flaw on
Facebook which he attempted to report through the company's bug bounty program. These
are usually great arrangements for companies to reward hackers disclosing
vulnerabilities they find in their code. Unfortunately, due to some miscommunications, his
report was not acknowledged. Frustrated with the exchange, he took to use his own
discovery to post on Mark Zuckerberg's wall. This got their attention, all right, and they fixed
the bug, but because he hadn't reported it properly, he was denied the bounty usually paid
out for such discoveries. Thankfully for Khalil,a group of hackers were watching out for
him. In fact, they raised more than 13,000 dollars to reward him for this discovery, raising a
vital discussion in the technology industry about how we come up with incentives for
hackers to do the right thing. But I think there's a greater story here still. Even companies
founded by hackers, like Facebook was, still have a complicated relationship when it comes
to hackers.And so for more conservative organizations, it is going to take time and
adapting in order to embrace hacker culture and the creative chaos that it brings with it. But
I think it's worth the effort, because the alternative, to blindly fight all hackers, is to go
against the power you cannot control at the cost of stifling innovation and regulating
knowledge. These are things that will come back and bite you.

7:17It is even more true if we go after hackers that are willing to risk their own freedom for
ideals like the freedom of the web, especially in times like this, like today even, as
governments and corporates fight to control the Internet. I find it astounding that someone
from the shadowy corners of cyberspace can become its voice of opposition, its last line of
defense even, perhaps someone like Anonymous, the leading brand of global
hacktivism. This universal hacker movement needs no introduction today, but six years
ago they were not much more than an Internet subculture dedicated to sharing silly pictures
of funny cats and Internet trolling campaigns. Their moment of transformation was in early
2008 when the Church of Scientology attempted to remove certain leaked videos from
appearing on certain websites.This is when Anonymous was forged out of the seemingly
random collection of Internet dwellers. It turns out, the Internet doesn't like it when you try
to remove things from it, and it will react with cyberattacksand elaborate pranks and with a
series of organized protests all around the world, from my hometown of Tel Aviv to
Adelaide, Australia. This proved that Anonymous and this idea can rally the masses from
the keyboards to the streets, and it laid the foundations for dozens of future
operations against perceived injustices to their online and offline world. Since then, they've
gone after many targets. They've uncovered corruption, abuse. They've hacked popes and
politicians, and I think their effect is larger than simple denial of service attacks that take
down websites or even leak sensitive documents. I think that, like Robin Hood, they are in
the business of redistribution, but what they are after isn't your money. It's not your
documents. It's your attention. They grab the spotlight for causes they support, forcing us to
take note, acting as a global magnifying glass for issues that we are not as aware of but
perhaps we should be. They have been called many names from criminals to terrorists, and
I cannot justify their illegal means, but the ideas they fight for are ones that matter to us
all. The reality is, hackers can do a lot more than break things. They can bring people
together.

10:14And if the Internet doesn't like it when you try to remove things from it, just watch what
happens when you try to shut the Internet down. This took place in Egypt in January
2011, and as President Hosni Mubarak attempted a desperate move to quash the rising
revolution on the streets of Cairo, he sent his personal troops down to Egypt's Internet
service providers and had them physically kill the switch on the country's connection to the
world overnight. For a government to do a thing like that was unprecedented,and for
hackers, it made it personal. Hackers like the Telecomix group were already active on the
ground,helping Egyptians bypass censorship using clever workarounds like Morse
code and ham radio. It was high season for low tech, which the government couldn't
block, but when the Net went completely down,Telecomix brought in the big guns. They
found European service providers that still had 20-year-oldanalog dial-up access
infrastructure. They opened up 300 of those lines for Egyptians to use, serving slow but
sweet Internet connection for Egyptians. This worked. It worked so well, in fact, one guy
even used it to download an episode of "How I Met Your Mother." But while Egypt's future
is still uncertain,when the same thing happened in Syria just one year later, Telecomix were
prepared with those Internet lines, and Anonymous, they were perhaps the first
international group to officially denounce the actionsof the Syrian military by defacing their
website.

12:06But with this sort of power, it really depends on where you stand, because one man's
hero can be another's villain, and so the Syrian Electronic Army is a pro-Assad group of
hackers who support his contentious regime. They've taken down multiple high-profile
targets in the past few years, including the Associated Press's Twitter account, in which
they posted a message about an attack on the White Houseinjuring President Obama. This
tweet was fake, of course, but the resulting drop in the Dow Jones indexthat day was most
certainly not, and a lot of people lost a lot of money.

12:53This sort of thing is happening all over the world right now. In conflicts from the
Crimean Peninsula to Latin America, from Europe to the United States, hackers are a force
for social, political and military influence. As individuals or in groups, volunteers or military
conflicts, there are hackers everywhere. They come from all walks of life, ethnicities,
ideologies and genders, I might add. They are now shaping the world's stage. Hackers
represent an exceptional force for change in the 21st century. This is because access to
information is a critical currency of power, one which governments would like to control, a
thing they attempt to do by setting up all-you-can-eat surveillance programs, a thing they
need hackers for, by the way. And so the establishment has long had a love-hate
relationship when it comes to hackers, because the same people who demonize
hacking also utilize it at large.

14:06Two years ago, I saw General Keith Alexander. He's the NSA director and U.S. cyber
commander, but instead of his four star general uniform, he was wearing jeans and a t-
shirt. This was at DEF CON, the world's largest hacker conference. Perhaps like me,
General Alexander didn't see 12,000 criminals that day in Vegas. I think he saw untapped
potential. In fact, he was there to give a hiring pitch. "In this room right here," he said, "is
the talent our nation needs." Well, hackers in the back row replied, "Then stop arresting
us." (Applause)

14:52Indeed, for years, hackers have been on the wrong side of the fence, but in light of
what we know now,who is more watchful of our online world? The rules of the game are not
that clear anymore, but hackers are perhaps the only ones still capable of challenging
overreaching governments and data-hoarding corporates on their own playing field. To me,
that represents hope.

15:22For the past three decades, hackers have done a lot of things, but they have also
impacted civil liberties,innovation and Internet freedom, so I think it's time we take a good
look at how we choose to portray them, because if we keep expecting them to be the bad
guys, how can they be the heroes too? My years in the hacker world have made me
realize both the problem and the beauty about hackers: They just can't see something
broken in the world and leave it be. They are compelled to either exploit it or try and change
it, and so they find the vulnerable aspects in our rapidly changing world. They make us,
they force us to fix things or demand something better, and I think we need them to do just
that, because after all, it is not information that wants to be free, it's us.

16:25Thank you very much.

16:28Thank you. (Applause)

16:31Hack the planet!