ForHackerEthics-ComputerScience.docVIP

For Hacker Ethics Freedom of Information is the key purpose of the hacker ethic -1984: hackers reveal a privacy flaw in a credit file; most people at the time didn’t know that information was gathered about them in a credit file. -The web is not a physical entitity; couldn’t be interpreted as property, therefore the public should have access to such information. -Hackers want to prevent a real-life version of 1984 Morality shift in the definition of hackers: About Hackers who got caught: Ex. Kevin Mitnick. Was sentenced to prison, twice. He should have kept a lower profile after he got caught the first time. He accessed emails, broke another rule in the hacker ethic. He eventually worked with the FBI and other security firms. Hackers have a system of ethics. They are not entirely good or entirely bad. The hacker network is maintained through trust, and exercising fairness in gathering and sharing information with other hackers. Government intervention in hacking was caused by people who decide to disregard the hacker ethic in keeping themselves low-profile or in secrecy. The hackers had to change their system of ethics with a major government intervention. The Computer as a New Medium of the 21st Century -Cyberactivism and Hacktivism Both were highlighted in the 1999 WTO’s Battle in Seattle Cyberactivism had activists setting up listservs and website to alert the world’s equal need in shelter, water, food, and other resources. Virtual sit-in’s were also staged Hacktivism involves hackers vandalizing websites that do not care for their causes; an extreme example. -The computer is a becoming a new medium in promoting social causes Hackers are a benefit -A computer security graduate student set up a website to prove that terrorists can make fake boarding passes; emphasizes that we are not secure as we thought -Article about computer scientists should go to hacker conferences: both sides are equally capable in dissecting computer technology to improve the computer’s fun