Ethical Computer Hacking

Topics: Black hat, White hat, Grey hat Pages: 3 (1026 words) Published: March 8, 2008
Have you ever been a victim of a cyber crime? Something as simple as a weird pop up that won't go away? Or maybe something a little bit more serious like your personal web page gets hi-jacked? All this "malicious" damage that causes you much grief isn't so much the work of a hacker, per se, but more the work of a "cracker" or a "script kiddie". Now you're confused right? Well let's just say everyone who knows how manipulate a computer isn't doing it on bad and evil terms, like writing a virus to deploy on a certain date to permanently delete certain file extensions. But maybe they're the people sitting hours on end to deploy a fix for that certain virus someone else is writing, or safeguarding a local bank's network to make sure that virus cannot access the banks database. Hacking can be ethical by providing the Internet world with a tightened sense of security by detecting and preventing security flaws before it is too late.

There are a many types of hacks, and hackers in the cyber world. A hack can be any modification done to virtually anything, to make it do something better, or something completely different. Many hackers are hackers of electronic equipment, mostly computers, but even cell phones, routers, iPods, digital cameras, and even the Toyota Prius have been hacked to get better gas mileage with the hybrid-electric engine (Rupley). But besides modifying computers themselves or gadgets, hackers play a significant role in the networking world. The Internet is a large collection of interconnected networks in which share files with each other, and hackers have been deemed the one's who steal, delete, or compromise these networks and files, which is not completely true. This type of crime is most likely the work of a script kiddie, or a "cracker", who is an inexperienced, unskilled "hacker" who attempts to infiltrate or disrupt computer systems by running pre-fabricated scripts designed to crack those systems (Script Kiddie). These are the people...


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