Hacking To Peaces Essay Research Paper Hacking

Hacking To Peaces Essay, Research Paper

Hacking to Peaces

The “Information Superhighway” possesses common traits with a regular

highway. People travel on it daily and attempt to get to a predetermined

destination. There are evil criminals who want to violate citizens in any way

possible. A reckless driver who runs another off the road is like a good hacker.

Hacking is the way to torment people on the Internet. Most of the mainstream

hacking community feel that it is their right to confuse others for their

entertainment. Simply stated, hacking is the intrusion into a computer for

personal benefit. The motives do not have to be focused on profit because many

do it out of curiosity. Hackers seek to fulfill an emptiness left by an

inadequate education. Do hackers have the right to explore wherever he or she

wants on the Internet (with or without permission), or is it the right of the

general population to be safe from their trespasses?

To tackle this question, people have to know what a hacker is. The

connotation of the word ‘hacker’ is a person that does mischief to computer

systems, like computer viruses and cybercrimes. “There is no single widely-used

definition of computer-related crime, [so] computer network users and law

enforcement officials must distinguish between illegal or deliberate network

abuse versus behavior that is merely annoying. Legal systems everywhere are

busily studying ways of dealing with crimes and criminals on the Internet”

(Voss, 1996, p. 2).

There are ultimately three different views on the hacker controversy. The

first is that hacking or any intrusion on a computer is just like trespassing.

Any electric medium should be treated just like it were tangible, and all laws

should be followed as such. On the other extreme are the people that see

hacking as a privilege that falls under the right of free speech. The limits of

the law should be pushed to their farthest extent. They believe that hacking is

a right that belongs to the individual. The third group is the people that are

in the middle of the two groups. These people feel that stealing information is

a crime, and that privacy is something that hackers should not invade. They are

not as right wing as the people that feel that hackers should be eliminated.

Hackers have their own ideals to how the Internet should operate. The

fewer laws there are to impede a hacker’s right to say and do what they want,

the better they feel. Most people that do hack follow a certain profile. Most

of them are disappointed with school, feeling “I’m smarter than most of the

other kids, this crap they teach us bores me” (Mentor, 1986, p. 70). Computers

are these hackers only refuge, and the Internet gives them a way to express

themselves. The hacker environment hinges on people’s first amendment right to

freedom of speech. Some justify their actions of hacking by saying that the

hacking that they do is legitimate.

Some hackers that feel their pastime is legitimate and only do it for

the information; others do it for the challenge. Still other hackers feel it is

their right to correct offenses done to people by large corporations or the

government. Hackers have brought it to the public’s attention that the

government has information on people, without the consent of the individual.

Was it a crime of the hacker to show that the government was intruding on the

privacy of the public? The government hit panic stage when reports stated that

over 65% of the government’s computers could be hacked into 95% of the time

(Anthes, 1996, p. 21). Other hackers find dubious business practices that large

corporations try to accomplish. People find this information helpful and

disturbing. However, the public may not feel that the benefits out weigh the

problems that hackers can cause. When companies find intruders in their

computer system, they strengthen their security, which costs money. Reports

indicate that hackers cost companies a total of $150 to $300 billion a year

(Steffora & Cheek, 1994, p. 43). Security system implementation is necessary to

prevent losses. The money that companies invest on security goes into the cost

of the products that they sell. This, in turn, raises the prices of the

products, which is not popular to the public.

The government feels that it should step in and make the choices when it

comes to the control of cyberspace. However, the government has a tremendous

amount of trouble with handling the laws dealing with hacking. What most of the

law enforcement agencies follow is the “Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.”

“Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act include intrusions into

government, financial, most medical, and Federal interest computers. Federal

interest computers are defined by law as two or more computers involved in the

criminal offense, which are located in

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