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A Serious Threat which is Not a Game!





The advancement of the computer age has introduced many new terms into our everyday vocabulary, one of these words, “hacker,” has to do with deviance and crime. Popular culture defines hackers as those who, through use of exceptional computer skills, are able to break into the computers owned by banks and government agencies. They snoop through information that does not belong to them, they steal expensive software, and they transfer funds from bank account to bank account.

Criminologists have described hackers in the following terms: “electronic trespassers” or “electronic vandals.” Hackers are recognized as “computer criminal.” They draw a clear distinction between the joyriding hacker and the trusted white collar employee who turns bad. Thus, we are seemingly left with a definition that has two extremes. The modern day bank robber at one end, the trespassing teenager at the other. Either activity (and any which falls in between) could be classified as “hacking.”

Unfortunately, the news media and the social scientific community has made little effort to move beyond this definition. The problem is compounded not only by the little information that is known about their daily activities, but by the fact that what is known does not always fall under existing criminal labels. That is to say, there is no legal definition of what it means to be a hacker, nor are all their activities in violation of criminal law. This results in applications of the term that change on a case-by-case basis depending on the charges that have been filed, not on any clear understanding of what it is that they actually do.

In the first connotation, hacking encompasses the tools and tricks used to obtain valid user accounts on computer systems that would otherwise be unavailable to the hacker. Once a successful entry is made, the illicit accounts are sometimes shared with associates and described as being “freshly hacked.” This is the stereotypical media image of the hacker — a computer-wise teenager, hunched over his computer keyboard, endlessly searching for an un-used account or a weak link in the security system. While this image is not entirely accurate, it does fairly represent this aspect of the term hacking. The second dimension of hacking has to do with the activity that occurs once access has been secured — once a password has been “hacked out.” Since the system is being used without permission, the hacker does not, generally speaking, have access to the usual operating manuals and other resources that are available to legitimate users of the system. Therefore, the intruder must experiment with command structures and explore files in order to understand and effectively use the system, or simply hacking a system.

The second activity that we will discuss is phone phreaking. Usually called just “phreaking,” which is a way to circumvent the billing mechanisms of the telephone company. It allows one to call anywhere in the world, quite literally without cost. In many cases it also prevents, or at least inhibits, the possibility of calls being traced to their source, thereby helping the offender to avoid being caught. Most members of the underground do not approach the telephone system with such passion. They are simply interested in exploiting its weaknesses in order to pursue other interests. In the above case, phreaking is more of a means than a pursuit unto itself. A hacker’s goal is not just to break into the system, but to learn about how it operates. The phreaker’s goal is not just to place long distance calls for free, but to discover what the phone company won’t explain about its network, and the tele-pirates goal is to obtain a copy of the latest software for his computer. So, even if a particular individual is knowledgeable about the telephone system, when he phreaks a call to download a game he is acting as a tele-pirate.

The phreak/hack worlds in particular are very much intertwined. The typologies presented here are broad, and need to be refined, they are a step forward in the accurate representation, specification, and identification of activities in the computer underground.

Some computers and software programs have known flaws that can be exploited. One of the most complex of these is “IP spoofing” in which a computer connected to the Internet can be tricked about the identity of another computer during the process of receiving data from that computer. Perhaps most important of all is the ability to “social engineer.” This can be as simple as talking people into giving out their passwords by impersonating someone, stealing garbage in the hope of gaining illicit information (trashing), or looking over someone’s shoulder as they use their password (shoulder surfing). However, what makes an intrusion a hack or an intruder a hacker is not the fact of gaining illegitimate access to computers by any of these means, but a set of principles about the nature of such intrusions. There three tenets that define a good hack:

1) simplicity — the act has to be simple but impressive;
2) mastery — however simple it is, the act must derive from a sophisticated technical expertise;
3) illicit — the act must be against some legal, institutional or even just perceived rules.

The key to understanding computer intrusion in a world increasingly reliant on computer-mediated communication lies in understanding a community whose aim is the hack. This community makes complex computer intrusion possible and a never-ending threat, through the limitless search for a good hack. This community stands forever intentionally poised at the forefront of computer communications and on the wrong side of what hackers see as dominant social and cultural norms.

“(…)To find ‘hacker culture’ you have to take a very wide view of the cyberspace terrain and watch the interactions among physically diversified people who have in common a mania for machines and software. What you will find will be a gossamer framework of culture. (…)” Marotta, hacker, interview.


‘(…)Hackers share a certain appreciation of, or attitude to technology in the assumption that technology can be turned to new and unexpected uses. This attitude need not be confined to computer-mediated communication. Dutch hacker Dell claimed to have explored the subterranean tunnels and elevator shafts of Amsterdam, including government fallout shelters (Dell, hacker, interview), while Utrecht hacker Ralph argued that hacking “pertains to any field of technology. Like, if you haven’t got a kettle to boil water with and you use your coffee machine to boil water with, then that in my mind is a hack, because you are using technology in a way that it’s not supposed to be used.” It is the belief that technology can be bent to new, unanticipated purposes that underpins hackers’ collective imagination. (…)’

Hackers are often pathologized as obsessed, isolated young men. The alien nature of online life allows people to believe that hackers communicate more easily with machines than humans, despite hackers constant use of computers to communicate with other humans. Fear of the power of computers over our own lives underpins this terror.




Acknowledgements
The Police Department; 
https://www.politie.nl/mijnbuurt/politiebureaus/05/burgwallen.html and a Chief Inspector – Mr. Erik Akerboom                                 ©

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1.      Criminal Investigations – Crime Scene Investigation.2000
2.       Forensic Science.2006
3.      Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation.2012
4.       Forensics Pathology.2001
5.       Pathology.2005  
6.      Forensic DNA Technology (Lewis Publishers,New York, 1991).
7.      The Examination and Typing of Bloodstains in the Crime Laboratory (U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., 1971).
8.      „A Short History of the Polymerase Chain Reaction". PCR Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology.
9.       Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual (3rd ed.). Cold Spring Harbor,N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.2001
10.  "Antibodies as Thermolabile Switches: High Temperature Triggering for the Polymerase Chain Reaction". Bio/Technology.1994
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12.  "Thermostable DNA Polymerases for a Wide Spectrum of Applications: Comparison of a Robust Hybrid TopoTaq to other enzymes". In Kieleczawa J. DNA Sequencing II: Optimizing Preparation and Cleanup. Jones and Bartlett. 2006
13.  "Microscale chaotic advection enables robust convective DNA replication.". Analytical Chemistry. 2013
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