'Clever circumvention of imposed limits'
Hacking is. That's what Judith Milhon, one of the first female hackers, said.
Unfortunately today, partly due to uneducated films and unwarranted media travesties, hacking has been equated to break-ins into computers and networks, not much higher in filthiness to criminal breaking-and-entering.
In one recent incident in the workplace, where several days worth of work had been maliciously deleted by someone who used an unsecured workstation to get into the (also unsecured) target host, the term "hacker" lived up to its infamous, albeit undeserved, progeny.
How the files were deleted (which were contained in a network share protected by a blank password) or how the intruder got in (the targetting computer was shared among several employees, with only an administrative acccount and no password) were never part of the office buzz. In the simplest of terms, it was this: "hackers did it."
The loose talk even pointed dirty fingers to the IT custodians, with claims that they "somehow" managed to control the culprit computer and make it appear that that computer was the source of the intrusion. Loose talk, because it was unfounded and based on the wrong assumptions. One such assumption is that the IT custodians, without any known motivation, bothered to control a machine from their hallowed office and make it do sinister work. They could have easily done the deed from their perch without going through intermediaries, and without leaving a trace at that. Another is that, assuming that the IT custodians had motive, the plain stupidity of the act -- that of deleting certain files and not others -- is proof enough of the malice of the act. If the suspects had a motive, they could have just as easily rendered the whole disk -- not just a few files -- unusable: maximum damage with minimum effort.
But, no, they're "hackers": they can get into your system anytime, anywhere. You're not safe.
Unfortunately today, partly due to uneducated films and unwarranted media travesties, hacking has been equated to break-ins into computers and networks, not much higher in filthiness to criminal breaking-and-entering.
In one recent incident in the workplace, where several days worth of work had been maliciously deleted by someone who used an unsecured workstation to get into the (also unsecured) target host, the term "hacker" lived up to its infamous, albeit undeserved, progeny.
How the files were deleted (which were contained in a network share protected by a blank password) or how the intruder got in (the targetting computer was shared among several employees, with only an administrative acccount and no password) were never part of the office buzz. In the simplest of terms, it was this: "hackers did it."
The loose talk even pointed dirty fingers to the IT custodians, with claims that they "somehow" managed to control the culprit computer and make it appear that that computer was the source of the intrusion. Loose talk, because it was unfounded and based on the wrong assumptions. One such assumption is that the IT custodians, without any known motivation, bothered to control a machine from their hallowed office and make it do sinister work. They could have easily done the deed from their perch without going through intermediaries, and without leaving a trace at that. Another is that, assuming that the IT custodians had motive, the plain stupidity of the act -- that of deleting certain files and not others -- is proof enough of the malice of the act. If the suspects had a motive, they could have just as easily rendered the whole disk -- not just a few files -- unusable: maximum damage with minimum effort.
But, no, they're "hackers": they can get into your system anytime, anywhere. You're not safe.
Comments
Post a Comment