Don’t Hack. Hacking is bad.

And what is good?

Hackers and Ethics

The original Hacker Ethic • 50s and 60s: Informal ethical code by hackers of MIT

and Stanford (SAIL).

• The first generation of programmers: time-sharing terminal access to 'dumb' mainframes,

• Confronted bureaucratic interference in exploring technological systems (computers, model trains, steam tunnels, phone systems, etc.).

• The ethic reflects their resistance to these obstacles, and their ideology of the liberating power of technology.

“Hacker Ethic” Steven Levy – 1984 Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

describes the following beliefs:(i)  Access to computers should be unlimited

and total.• Rather than limited to big business and elite

(ii)  All information should be free.• freedom of movement = no censorship

• without control (freedom of change/evolution = no ownership or authorship, no intellectual property

• without monetary value (no cost.)

Hacker Ethic

(iii)  Mistrust Authority – Promote Decentralization: • Distrust large institutions (The State, corporations, the

IBM 'priesthood‘)

(iv)  Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.

(v)  You can create art and beauty on a computer.(vi)  Computers can change life for the better.

New Hacker Ethics "Above all else, do no harm" Do not

damage computers or data if at all possible. • based on intent. • what constitutes "harm" is left open. • pranks and practical jokes harmless?

Protect Privacy: control over personal information.

• Still no codified right to privacy for U.S. citizens, • Supreme Court -- implicit in judgments (legalizing

distribution of birth control and the right to abortion). • Means a certain kind of information should not be

free --contradiction to the original hacker ethic.

New Hacker Ethic

"Waste not, want not." Computers should not lie idle and wasted.

"joy riders' ethic"

If you borrow someone's car, and return it with no damage, a full tank of gas, improvements…?

Is it an ethical to make a set of keys for yourself so you can borrow it whenever you feel like? (sysadmin privileges).

New Hacker Ethic

Exceed Limitations • "Extropians" universal force of expansion and growth,

inverse to entropy, which they call "extropy."

• Falsificationism: Should seek it’s own demise – flaws, weaknesses

The Communicational Imperative:• Right to communicate with their peers freely.

• 1st amendment rights to communication and assembly -- for the free flow of information.

• Phreakers: people (poor), right to communicate cheaply .

New Hacker Ethic

Leave No Traces:• Keep quiet, so everyone can enjoy what you have

• to protect other hackers from being caught or losing access.

Share! • Information increases in value by sharing

• Don't hoard, don't hide

• Just because it wants to be free, does not mean you must give it to as many people as possible. Pirates are NOT freeloaders

New Hacker Ethic Self Defense: be vigilant against cyber-tyranny and

• Cyberpunk Future Hacking

• to overcome more powerful forces that can control their lives.

• If governments and corporations know they can be hacked, then they will not overstep their power to afflict the citizenry.

Hacking Helps Security • "Tiger team ethic": it is useful and courteous to find security

holes, and then tell people how to fix them. Trust, but Test! security and system integrity

• lest it fail when it is most needed (like the AT & T phone switches did in 1990.)

3 Principles in Hacker Ethic:

(1) Information should be free; (2) Hackers provide society with a useful

and important service; (3) Activities in cyberspace are virtual in

nature and thus do not harm real people in the real (physical) world. 

“Information Wants to Be Free”

Eugene H. Spafford "Spaf“ (1992) CS Purdue, leading computer security expert.

Idealistic, romantic, naïve If information were free, privacy would not be

possible It would not be possible to ensure integrity and

accuracy of the information Would we permit someone to start a fire in a

shopping mall in order to test the sprinkler system? Would you thank a burglar who shows that your

home security system was inadequate?

Can Computer Break-ins Ever Be Ethically Justified?

Spafford (1992) believes that in certain extreme cases, breaking into a com- puter could be the "right thing to do." • e.g., breaking into a computer to get medical

records to save one’s life. He also argues that computer break-ins

always cause harm; and from this point, he infers that hacker break-ins are never ethically justifiable.

Hacktivism

Manion and Goodrum (2000) questioned whether some cyber-attacks might not be better understood as acts of hacktivism.

They consider the growing outrage on the part of some hackers and political activists over an increasingly "commodified Internet.“

They also question whether this behavior suggests a new form of civil disobedience, which they describe as hacktivism.

Hacktivism (continued)

Hacktivism integrates the talent of traditional computer hackers with the interests and social consciousness of political activists.

Manion and Godrum note that while hackers continue to be portrayed as vandals, terrorists, and saboteurs, hardly anyone has considered the possibility that at least some of these individuals might be "electronic political activists" or hacktivists.

Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism

Activism includes the normal, non-disruptive use of the Internet to support a cause. • e.g, an activist could use the Internet to discuss

issues, form coalitions, and plan and coordinate activities.

Activists could engage in a range of activities from browsing the Web to sending e-mail, posting material to a Web site, constructing a Web site dedicated to their political cause or causes, and so forth.

Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism (continued)

Hacktivism: activism and hacking• target sites with intent to disrupt normal

operations

• but without intending to cause serious damage.

"e-mail bombs" and "low grade" viruses cause only minimal disruption and would

not result in severe economic damage or loss of life.

Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism (continued)

Cyberterorism consists of operations that are intended to cause • great harm such as loss of life

• or severe economic damage, or both.

e.g., attempt to bring down stock market or take control of a transportation unit in

order to cause trains to crash.

Table 6-1: Hacktivism, Cyberterrorism, and Information Warfare

Hacktivism The convergence of political activism and computer hacking techniques to engage in a new form of civil disobedience.

Cyberterrorism The convergence of cyber-technology and terrorism for carrying acts of terror in (or via) cyberspace.

Information Warfare Using information to deceive the enemy; and using conventional warfare tactics to take out an enemy's computer and information systems.