Med122 hackers lecture

Overview
 Origins
 ‘Golden Age’
 Criminality
 Hacktivism today?
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 Jim Thomas (2005) ‘The moral ambiguity of
social control in cyberspace: a retro-
assessment of the ‘golden age’ of hacking’
 Paul Taylor (2005) ‘From hackers to
hacktivists: speed bumps on the global
superhighway?’
 Both in New Media & Society, Vol 7, No 5
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 Hackers Wanted (aka Can
You Hack It?)
4
Click

From then to today…
 Nissenbaum (2004: 196) claims hackers were
once seen as:
 ‘ardent (if quirky) programmers capable of
brilliant, unorthodox feats of machine
manipulation’
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Origins…
 1946
 Tech Model Railway
Club
 Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT)
 Hackers Wanted
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 Robert Bickford (1986) defined a hacker as
 ‘any person who derives joy from discovering
ways to circumvent limitations.’
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 Sherry Turkle (1984: 232) defined
the hack as being:
 ‘the Holy Grail. It is a concept which
exists independently of the
computer and can best be presented
through an example using another
technology complex enough to
support its own version of hacking
and hackers’
9

Phone-Phreaking
 John Draper (aka
Captain Crunch)
 The Woz and The Blue Box
10See: http://myoldmac.net/FAQ/TheBlueBox-1.htm

1980s…
 Hierarchies develop
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Elite hackers
lamerz

Trophies
 ‘Computer Underground’ (Meyer, 1989)
 Darknets?
 Hackers began to be perceived as ‘cultural
deviants, law-breaking miscreants or
renegade sociopaths’ (Thomas, 2005: 603).
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 “A subtle modification about p0f [passive OS
fingerprinting] which [sic] made me finding
documents that I wasn't supposed to find. Some
years ago, I had a period when each month I tried to
focus on the security of one country. One of those
countries was South-Korea where I owned a big ISP
[Internet service provider]. After spending some
time to figure out how I could leave the DMZ [a
‘neutral’ network zone] and enter in the LAN [local
area network], I succeed thanks to a cisco
modification (I like default passwords). Once in the
LAN and after hiding my activity (userland >
kernelland), I installed a slightly modification of p0f.”
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Phrack
editor…

Phrack
editor…
 “The purpose if this version was to scan
automatically all the windows box found on the
network, mount shared folders and list all files in
these folders. Nothing fantastic. But one of the
computers scanned contained a lot of files about the
other Korea... North Korea. And trust me, there
were files that I wasn't supposed to find. I couldn't
believe it. I could do the evil guy and try to sell these
files for money, but I had (and I still have) a hacker
ethic. So I simply added a text file on the desktop to
warn the user of the "flaw". After that I left the
network and I didn't come back. It was more than 5
years ago so don't ask me the name of the ISP I can't
remember”
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Golden Age of Hacking
(1980-1990)
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High profile arrests
 1982 – Roscoe gang (associates
of Kevin Mitnick)
 1983 – Inner Circle
 1984 – ‘414s’
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Publications
 1984 - 2600: The Hacker Quarterly
 1985 - Phrack
 1987 - Legion of Doom/H Technical Journal
 1988 - P/Hun
 1989 - PIRATE
 1990 - Computer underground Digest (aka
CuD)
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Bulletin Board Systems
(BBSs)
 Plover-Net
 Swap Shop
 Private Sector
 Demon Roach
Underground
 Ripco
 Metal Shop
 The Phoenix Project
 Black Ice
 The Mentor
 Phiber Optik
 Dr Ripco
 Taran King
 Hatchet Molly
 Terminus
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IRC
 Jarkko Oikarinen
 1988
 ASCII chatrooms
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Ethical Hacking?
 Mantra of ‘knowledge wants
to be free’ (Stewart Brand)
 Founder of theWELL
 Moral imperative to spread
info and prevent secrecy
(Barlow, 1994)
 Cyber-Robin Hood!
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Ethical Hacking?
1. Reject the notion businesses are the only
groups entitled to technology
2. Hacking was central to freedom and
resistance to corporate oppression
3. High costs of equipment meant hacking and
phreaking were essential for spreading
computer literacy
 (‘Doctor Crash’, 1986)
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A noble pursuit?
 It is a full time hobby, taking countless hours per week to learn,
experiment and execute the art of penetrating multi-user
computers: Why do hackers spend a good portion of their time
hacking? Some might say it is scientific curiosity, others that it is
for mental stimulation. But the true roots of hacker motives run
much deeper than that. In this file I will describe the underlying
motives of the aware hackers, make known the connections
between Hacking, Phreaking, Carding and Anarchy and make
known the ‘techno-revolution’ which is laying seeds in the mind
of every hacker . . . If you need a tutorial on how to perform any
of the above stated methods [of hacking], please read a [Phrack]
file on it. And whatever you do, continue the fight. Whether
you know it or not, if you are a hacker, you are a revolutionary.
[D]on’t worry, you’re on the right side.
 (‘Doctor Crash’, 1986)
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Criminality
 Hacking as a ‘moral panic’
 Mass media pivotal in changing the meaning
of the term ‘hacker’
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Craig ‘Knight Lightning’
Neidorf
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1990s onwards
 First internet worm released in 1988
(!) by Robert Morris
 Hacking became synonymous with
computer crime
 May 2007 – Estonia hacked –
Russia?
 June 2010 – Stuxnet worm in Iran –
Israel?
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Hacktivism
 Hackers with a political
conscious
 Subverting big business or
corrupt authorities
 Criminal or moral?
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Different shades
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- The script kiddie

To consider
 How have the media dealt with or portrayed
recent hacking stories?
 Gary McKinnon?
 George Hotz?
 Anonymous?
 Lulzsec?
 Stuxnet?
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Questions
1. Have you ever had an electronic account hacked? If so,
we really want to hear what happened and how it felt
2. Have you ever 'hacked' a piece of software or hardware
to make it do something it shouldn't? Why (not)?
3. Have you ever took to the internet to get involved in
any kind of protest movement?
4. To what extent do you think online activism is helpful
for bringing about real word change? Try to come up
with some examples
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Med122 hackers lecture

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