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24/125: The Fading Hacker Mystique
Name: Mac??? #95 @5211
Date: Sat Aug 24 22:06:32 1991
From: Blitzkrieg (Louisville, Ky.)
[FORMATTED FOR 80 COLUMNS
AND MIXED CASE]
The Fading Hacker Mystique: No Longer Just Pests
CORPORATIONS TURNING UP THE HEAT ON HI-TECH INTERLOPERS
The blurred line between computer hacking and computer crime has never been
more unclear. With few precedents to guide them, criminologists, legal
scholars, and computer users are scrambling to define the boundaries of
acceptable PC hacking.
That's not an easy job, but a resolution of the issue has never been more
pressing--the prosecution of hackers charged with illegally infiltrating
private data banks is on the upswing.
Increasingly, federal authorities are pursuing hacker related crimnes,
according to New York State Police Senior Investigator Don Delaney.
"[Hacking] is causing companies to lose a lot of money," said Delaney, who
made his comments at a recent conference on computer privacy hosted by New
York University.
The hacker mystique doesn't play at all well in corporate America, where
MIS managers take dim views of outsiders busting into their data networks, and
they often treat security breaches as crimes.
The most famous case occurred a couple of years ago, when Robert Morris
Jr., the son of a famous computer scientist, was put on trial and convicted
after a rogue virus he invented paralyzed a nationwide computer network.
More recently, a 17-year-old New York student was charged with a
misdemeanor for cracking the code in Sprint's extensive UNIX networks. The
apprentice hacker, who goes by the code name "Phiber Optic," maintains that he
turned to hacking because his school didn't cover the computer subjects he was
interested in. Even now, he still believes that private computer networks
remain fair game.
Intellectually curious or hi-tech felons?
Hackers are rarely "just playing," Delaney said. Often, they've been
involved in crimes such as stealing credit cards or accessing toll-free phone
numbers.
Ultimately, the answer will be colored by what side of the debate you
take, but if Delaney's position reflects a wider hard-line attitude, hackers
should take note.
"Every company has the rihgt to have its computer networks left alone," he
said.
--[ Taken from the August, 1991 issue of Computer Shopper on page 128. ]--
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Re-typed and uploaded by MAC??? of The NATO Association.
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