What is the point of Hacking?

[IAstroViz]

I have been asking myself all day, why do some hack?

 

To hack is in my opinion, to be mean or cruel. It is stealing private information. But I wanted to ask, why hack the CIA or NSA or FBI to steal information. The hacker already knows he is gonna be tracked and get captured by them. So whats to point of hacking? If I was a hacker I would hack a bank or something really expensive...

 

What would you hack or why do you think about hacking the government?

 

IAstroVIz

[John Cuthber]

Why climb Everest?

[Unity+]

I have been asking myself all day, why do some hack?

 

To hack is in my opinion, to be mean or cruel. It is stealing private information. But I wanted to ask, why hack the CIA or NSA or FBI to steal information. The hacker already knows he is gonna be tracked and get captured by them. So whats to point of hacking? If I was a hacker I would hack a bank or something really expensive...

 

What would you hack or why do you think about hacking the government?

 

IAstroVIz

There have been interviews of hackers and here is a list of reasons that have been given as to why they commit these activities:

 

1. Want to expose information
2. Want to bring down the website for political purposes/opinions
3. Trying to keep information secret
4. Trying to steal information
5. Wanting to feel power
6. Curiosity
7. Seeing if you can do it
8. Want to expose a problem in the system
9. Money

[Marshalscienceguy]

I have been asking myself all day, why do some hack?

 

To hack is in my opinion, to be mean or cruel. It is stealing private information. But I wanted to ask, why hack the CIA or NSA or FBI to steal information. The hacker already knows he is gonna be tracked and get captured by them. So whats to point of hacking? If I was a hacker I would hack a bank or something really expensive...

 

What would you hack or why do you think about hacking the government?

 

IAstroVIz

Depends who you ask. Some have an agenda and some people are really smart and just want to see if they could do it not caring about who they hurt in the process. Which I would consider sociopathic behavior but a lot of sociopaths are brilliant. It also could be out of revenge. Like "You dumped me and made a fool out of me I am going to hack your Facebook and put up a bunch of dirty pictures that I photo shopped of you". It could be people like the group Anonymous who has been placed on the terrorist watch list who apparently try to reveal the government conspiracy's they say we are not able to see since its hidden. Some people are just really smart and like to screw around to see if they could. So there is a lot of reasons one might hack.

Edited June 5, 2015 by Marshalscienceguy

[jamieoverton727]

Hackers are people that feel the need to invade other people's personal space. There are different hackers: good ones that find new ways to make Computers safer, ones that tweak computers to do stuff that they shouldnt be doing, but they arent doing any harm or anything illegal, and the ones that try to steal information via virus, remote attack, etc. Hackers use different methods of hacking. There are hundreds of them. The most popular is the Denial of Service (DoS) and remote assistance. Dos is when the hacker tries to temporarily overload your computer, so they can bypass security. Remote assistance is where the Windows OS allows other computers to take control of other computers. this can be useful for a company network, or somebody helping with a problem, but is huge vulnerability. Hope this helps.

[3blake7]

Mostly the purpose of hacking IS NOT to steal information. Mostly the purpose it to find vulnerable websites and personal computers and infect them with programs that place advertisements. Like 99% of hacking is done by completely automated scripts that search for known vulnerabilities and place advertisements on the computer or website server.

 

Other than that, young people like to sharpen their skills, as a form of sport but mostly they grow out of that and become network security administrators. Hacking a government is just the riskiest thing to do so it's more a testament of skill and confidence in your abilities. The government like any organization is filled with people who don't understand computer security and make mistakes. There is only so much their security experts can do without making it too inconvenient for their employees. Plus, there is always some employee who wants to take his work laptop home and pirate some software infected with a trojan.

 

Stealing credit card numbers, World of Warcraft passwords is also fairly common but from my experience in the IT industry, an overwhelming amount of hacking is done by shady internet advertisers and their shadier re-sellers. A very common attack awhile back was SQL injections, which was a vulnerability in a website software that did not block characters in passwords and usernames, like ; they were able to create a script that would go to random websites and enter SQL code into their username and password prompts. On the back end the variable for the username and password would be replaced with the SQL code, within a database query. This would allow hackers to run their own queries on the database. Most often they would inject JavaScript code into all the rows and columns of the database table. Sometimes they would steal information like passwords and hack all the users emails to give themselves other potential targets. The JavaScript code would link to a site that had a popup, like "Your computer is infected! Download this free virus scanner.." Which would often install adware and malware on your computer. Every time you see an ad they get a penny or something. It could also install a keylogger and record your passwords and credit card numbers. Another motive would be information for identity theft.

 

There is also hacktivism, which are mostly just people injecting personal computers and building a botnet. A botnet is just a big group of compromised personal computers that a hacktivist has at their disposal. They can send a command to all the computers in their network and have them all visit the same website over and over. This doesn't sound like a bad thing but when a bot net is millions of computers and they are using multiple threads, like viewing the same site 100 times simultaneously its more like 100,000,000 users. This is called a Distributed Denial of Service attack. or DDoS. This is mostly used by consumer or political activists as a way to hurt some organization they don't like. There are already defenses against this attack such as a firewall that has the ability to automatically block any IP address that has unusual attributes, like viewing the same site 100 times simultaneously.

 

I personally think hacking has been overly romanticized by Hollywood.

Edited July 3, 2015 by 3blake7

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

Hacking does not necessarily imply illegal or surreptitious activity.

 

A "hack" is a crude, temporary or ad hoc alternative for working around a problem. It should be used in the same context as a gun. Gun ownership and usage does not always mean killing or illegality.

 

For example, in the 90's I was given an Amiga computer for free because the previous owner upgraded to a new model. The catch was, it didn't come with a monitor and an IBM compatible monitor wouldn't work, even though the plugs were the same. However upon looking at the 15 pin specs, I realized Amiga monitors operated on the same standard, except the horizontal and vertical syncs were swapped. I took the plug apart, rolled two pairs of wires, re-soldered them, then had a working monitor.

 

I used to fix vending machines in my younger days. Sometimes replacement parts were expensive, unavailable or took a long time to ship. A vending machine sitting on a shop floor does not produce revenue. Very often, I'd "hack" similar parts to get it back in service. Cannibalizing is form of hacking.

 

I've written code to prevent unauthorized access or abuse of networks. If you discover a security issue and no fix is currently available, one could "hack" a workaround. Likewise, I've made hacks to known viruses for the sole purpose of destroying themselves. Instead of starting from scratch, a few simple alterations are made to the code base (ie) changing WRITE to DELETE. Again, a hack.

 

Duct tape and hay wire are famous hacking tools. If they get you home or get the job done, no harm... no foul.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Lagoon Island Pearls

[MonDie]

Professionals use "hacking" to mean changing software or firmware from the original design [sic]. Better terms include "intruder", "attacker", and "penetration".

[3blake7]

The definitions of words change over time through the cultural process, which is often people mis-using words or using them in new ways. Originally, hacker referred to a person who "hacked" which was a program that would sift through text or data and chop it up into smaller pieces, basically a parser. In the old days, people referred to virtual burglars as crackers, as in safe crackers. But the general population and pop media clung to the word hacker, misused it so much that it's definition has basically been changed. The majority wins.

[MonDie]

I knew I'd forgotten one: "cracker".

[IAstroViz]

Well from what I heard, it seems pretty clear that the word 'hack' or 'hacking' is a very numb term for either stealing or looking for information.

[andrewcellini]

Well from what I heard, it seems pretty clear that the word 'hack' or 'hacking' is a very numb term for either stealing or looking for information.

or for exploiting bugs in an effort to bring them to light so they can be fixed.

[MonDie]

or for exploiting bugs in an effort to bring them to light so they can be fixed.

 

That's what DEF CON presentations are for. Presenting the malicious code will get a faster response than using the code in secret until somebody spots your hack, and it doesn't risk your reputation. Even Caudill & Wilson only released a sample code "into the wild" just to up the stakes for manufacturers; the original discoverers didn't release anything.

Edited July 24, 2015 by MonDie

[wpan2002]

guys you know isn't this talking about illegal stuff and i though it was ageist the rules ?

[metacogitans]

guys you know isn't this talking about illegal stuff and i though it was ageist the rules ?

Glancing over the thread I didn't see anyone talking about anything illegal; I saw people mentioning the existence of criminal hackers, but that's not against the rules, it's going to come up just by being a part of the definition of what's being talked about.

It'd be like trying to tell someone about the history of AC and DC current and not being able to bring up Edison electrocuting an Elephant; you need to let people tell the whole story, it's just good book-keeping.

Edited November 25, 2015 by metacogitans

[TheGeckomancer]

Hacking is not inherently mean, or cruel. It just is. Firstly. MOST hackers are called White Hackers which test security systems, find vulnerabilities and patch them up. SOME People hack for personal gain, stealing credit card information and what have you (this is actually the least common). Then there are the Social Justice hackers, which are the second largest group after white hackers. They break into security systems to leak information to people they feel need that information. You can debate all day whether they are right or wrong but 99% of the info we get from them we would never have gotten at all to even have the debate about whether or not that information should be secret.

[DevilSolution]

HAHA i guess no one heres running backtrack then......

 

its a sport, a skill and a challenge.

 

There a various types of hackers (usually associated to hats) but true hackers are usually the architects themselves, the ones who know where to backdoors are because they coded them or couldnt find a work around for a bug. Or you could open sqlinjection and go pester some servers for misconfigured files etc

 

Whoever wrote that DoS is hacking are misinformed, its used to overload a servers network load, sometimes finding bottle necks but usually changing the send request so it asks for a pause on the return, this way you one script can be as damaging as 10 computers DoSing, i forget the program but it essentially just sends pings or modified packets to a server. You wont gain access doing that....

 

i've never done any hacking but i always thought it was cool, just to be able to.

Hacking is not inherently mean, or cruel. It just is. Firstly. MOST hackers are called White Hackers which test security systems, find vulnerabilities and patch them up. SOME People hack for personal gain, stealing credit card information and what have you (this is actually the least common). Then there are the Social Justice hackers, which are the second largest group after white hackers. They break into security systems to leak information to people they feel need that information. You can debate all day whether they are right or wrong but 99% of the info we get from them we would never have gotten at all to even have the debate about whether or not that information should be secret.

 

Haha then you have the chinese and russians

[TJ McCaustland]

I have been asking myself all day, why do some hack?

 

To hack is in my opinion, to be mean or cruel. It is stealing private information. But I wanted to ask, why hack the CIA or NSA or FBI to steal information. The hacker already knows he is gonna be tracked and get captured by them. So whats to point of hacking? If I was a hacker I would hack a bank or something really expensive...

 

What would you hack or why do you think about hacking the government?

 

IAstroVIz

Well they wouldn't necessarily be caught if they were smart and REALLY knew what they were doing. There are some people, like members of Anonymous, who can bounce IP's around all day like it's nothing and laugh when the FBI or CIA knocks on a door 350 miles away because you used their IP address. The real points of hacking are usually

 

a) To impress a girl or some friends, (Neutral hacking)

 

b) To simply screw with people and laugh your A%# off about it (Like the famed CBS hack) (Neutral hacking)

 

c) To steal information/money (Black hat hacking)

 

d) To test security/counterhack (White hat hacking)

Edited December 10, 2015 by TJ McCaustland

[petrushka.googol]

Hacking exploits web related vulnerabilities like passwords, sessions etc. It is designed to steal data and compromise user credentials.