Black Hat and White Hat Hackers: Criminals or Drivers of Progress?
In media stories, hackers can be portrayed as super-spies, like in the movie “Mission: Impossible” where Ethan Hunt descends from the ceiling to hack the CIA’s computer system and steal information, or as lonely, reclusive teenagers just looking for fun. Hackers represent a very diverse subculture, and their activities can be judged in different ways: on one hand, they are individuals responsible for causing billions in damages, and on the other, they are drivers of the development of the internet and security systems. We believe that truth is always better than fiction, so in this article, you can read about ten of the most famous hackers and decide for yourself whether to consider them heroes or criminals.
Black Hat Hackers
The internet is full of hackers known as “crackers” or “black hats.” These are the cybercriminals often featured in the news. For some, it’s just entertainment, while others seek personal gain. In the first part of this article, we’ll look at five of the most famous black hat hackers.
1. Jonathan James
James became famous as the first underage hacker to be sent to prison for hacking. He came under investigation at the age of 16. In an interview with PBS, James admitted, “I’m just having fun. I like to find challenges and, by solving them, get results.”
James mainly targeted large organizations. He installed a backdoor on a server belonging to the U.S. Department of Defense’s DTRA—the agency responsible for countering nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional, and special weapons threats. The backdoor allowed him to view confidential emails and intercept employee usernames and passwords.
James also hacked NASA computers, stealing software valued at about $1.7 million. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “The software was designed to support the International Space Station’s operation, such as controlling the temperature and humidity on board.” NASA was forced to replace computer systems at a cost of $41,000. James said he downloaded the military-developed code to improve his C++ programming skills: “The code itself is questionable and certainly not worth $1.7 million, as NASA claims.”
Given the scale of his attacks, if James—known as “c0mrade”—had been an adult, he would have received a ten-year prison sentence. Instead, he was banned from using computers and given six months of house arrest with probation. However, he did serve six months in prison for violating parole. James now claims he has learned his lesson and may start a company focused on computer security.
2. Adrian Lamo
Lamo became famous for hacking major organizations like The New York Times and Microsoft. He used secure internet connections in cafes or libraries for his attacks. In the article “He Hacks by Day, Squats by Night,” Lamo says, “I had a laptop in Pittsburgh and a change of clothes in Washington. That had to affect the legal interpretation of the case.”
His attacks involved testing whether he could penetrate a system, finding security flaws, understanding them, and then reporting the vulnerabilities to the company he hacked. Victims of this “goodwill hacking” included Yahoo!, Bank of America, Citigroup, and AT&T.
When “white hat” hackers are specifically hired to find vulnerabilities, it’s legal. But in Lamo’s case, things were different.
When Adrian gained access to The New York Times’ internal network, things got very serious. He added himself to the list of experts and was able to view personal information of company contributors, including Social Security numbers. Lamo also hacked a LexisNexis account.
For breaking into The New York Times’ network, Lamo was ordered to pay about $65,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to six months of house arrest and two years of probation. The court order expired on January 16, 2007. Lamo now works as a respected journalist and gives lectures.
3. Kevin Mitnick
The self-proclaimed “poster boy for hackers,” Mitnick was the subject of a real manhunt by authorities. His “pranks” were greatly exaggerated in the media, making him more famous than his actual crimes warranted. The U.S. Department of Justice called him “the most wanted computer criminal in United States history.” His exploits were detailed in two films: “Freedom Downtime” and “Takedown.”
Mitnick didn’t have enough experience to commit the crimes that made him famous. He started by tinkering with punch card systems to ride Los Angeles buses for free. Like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Kevin also dabbled in phone phreaking. Despite numerous crimes, Mitnick was ultimately convicted for hacking Digital Equipment Corporation’s computer network and stealing software.
Mitnick’s “pranks” became more serious when he was sentenced to two and a half years for “hacking for fun.” According to a CNN article titled “Legendary Computer Hacker Released from Prison,” “he hacked computers, stole secret documents, attacked phone networks, and broke into the U.S. national defense alert system.” He later hacked the home computer of programmer and hacker Tsutomu Shimomura, which led to his downfall.
Today, Mitnick has shed his black hat reputation and become a productive member of society. He served five years in prison, including eight months in solitary confinement. He is now a computer security consultant and author of several books.
4. Kevin Poulsen
Also known as Dark Dante, Poulsen became famous for hacking the phone lines of Los Angeles radio station KIIS FM. Law enforcement called him “the Hannibal Lecter of computer crime.”
The authorities began pursuing Poulsen after he hacked into the federal warrant database. During this time, he also angered the FBI by hacking their wiretapping system.
Poulsen specialized mainly in phone fraud. His most famous attack targeted KIIS FM, where he took over all the station’s phone lines. He also “added escort service phone numbers to databases that ended up in the hands of virtual agencies.” Later, when his photo was shown on a TV show, 1,800 phone lines used for viewer calls became unavailable due to the volume of calls. Eventually, Poulsen was caught in a supermarket and served five years in prison.
After prison, Poulsen worked as a journalist. He is now a senior editor at Wired News. His most famous article exposed 744 sex offender profiles on MySpace.
5. Robert Tappan Morris
Morris, the son of a scientist who worked at the National Security Agency, is known as the creator of the “Morris worm”—the first computer worm to appear on the internet. As a result, he became the first person prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Morris wrote the worm’s code while a student at Cornell University. He claimed he used it to see how big the internet was. However, the worm behaved differently than expected, irreparably damaging many personal computers. The exact number of affected machines is unknown, but experts estimate about 6,000 PCs were damaged. Morris was sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $10,500 fine.
Today, Morris is a professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at MIT. He mainly researches computer network architecture, including distributed hash tables like “Chord” and wireless mesh networks such as Roofnet.
White Hat Hackers
Hackers who use their skills for good are called “white hats.” These individuals often work as certified “ethical hackers,” hired by companies to test the integrity of internal systems. Others may work independently, without breaking the law, and create truly interesting things. In the second part of this article, we’ll look at five white hat hackers and the technologies they’ve developed.
1. Steve Wozniak
Wozniak is known as the “other Steve” from Apple. Along with the late Steve Jobs, he co-founded Apple Computer. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology and received honorary doctorates from Kettering University and Nova Southeastern University. Wozniak was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in September 2000.
Wozniak began his career by creating fake electronic devices (“blue boxes”) that allowed people to make free long-distance phone calls. After reading an article about phone phreaking in Esquire magazine, Wozniak called his friend Jobs. Together, they explored radio frequencies and developed their own blue boxes for long-distance calls, selling them to college classmates. Wozniak even once used the device to call the Pope, pretending to be Henry Kissinger.
Wozniak dropped out of college and invented the computer that eventually made him famous. It was a brilliant idea—to sell a fully assembled, ready-to-use computer. Wozniak sold his beloved engineering calculator, and Jobs sold his Volkswagen van to raise money to build prototypes in Jobs’ garage. Wozniak designed the hardware and wrote most of the software. In the “Letters” section of Woz.org, Steve recalls, “We did the same things as Ed Roberts, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and hundreds of others, but without any outside help.” Wozniak and Jobs sold the first batch of 100 Apple I computers to a local dealer for $666.66 each.
Wozniak no longer works at Apple full-time, focusing mainly on philanthropy. A notable example is his support for the Los Gatos School District in California, providing students and teachers with modern technology.
2. Tim Berners-Lee
Berners-Lee is known as the inventor of the World Wide Web (WWW)—the system we use to access websites, documents, and files on the internet. He has received worldwide recognition and, most notably, the Millennium Technology Prize.
As an Oxford University student, Berners-Lee was caught hacking with a friend and was banned from using university computers. According to W3.org, “At the time (at Oxford), he built his first computer with a soldering iron, TTL gates, an M6800 processor, and an old television.” Technological innovation seemed to be in his genes—his parents were mathematicians who worked on one of the earliest computers, the Manchester Mark 1.
While working at CERN, Berners-Lee created a prototype hypertext system to help researchers share and update information easily. He later realized that hypertext could be combined with internet technology. Berners-Lee explains, “I just had to take the idea of hypertext and connect it to TCP and DNS and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web was born.”
Since creating the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT. The consortium describes itself as “an international organization where members and the public work together to develop web standards.” Berners-Lee’s idea of the “web” and the W3C standards are freely available without patents or royalties.
3. Linus Torvalds
Torvalds is the father of Linux, a very popular Unix-like operating system. He calls himself an “engineer” and says his goals are simple: “I just want to do my best to create the most advanced operating system.”
Torvalds began his programming career with an 8-bit Commodore VIC-20 home computer, then moved on to the Sinclair QL. According to Wikipedia, he decided to upgrade the Sinclair, “especially its operating system.” Torvalds hacked the assembler, text editor, and several games that came pre-installed on the PC.
Torvalds created the Linux kernel in 1991, using the Minix operating system as inspiration. He started with a task switcher for the Intel 80386 and a terminal driver. He then invited other programmers to contribute their code. Today, only about 2% of the current Linux kernel is written by Torvalds himself. The success of this collaborative effort is considered one of the brightest examples of open-source software development.
Torvalds is now the lead maintainer of Linux, coordinating code contributions from volunteer programmers. He has an asteroid named after him and honorary doctorates from Stockholm University and the University of Helsinki. Linus is featured in Time magazine’s “60 Years of Heroes.”
4. Richard Stallman
Stallman became famous for the GNU Project, which he founded to develop a free operating system. He is also known as the father of open-source software. In his “true biography,” he says, “Proprietary software makes users divided and helpless, forbids improvement and sharing. A free operating system is essential for people. It allows them to freely use their computers.”
Stallman, who calls himself RMS, began his career hacking at MIT. He worked as a “staff hacker” on Emacs and other projects. In the lab, he had a special assignment: acting as a kind of password evaluator. If Stallman cracked a user’s system password, he would reset it and send a message asking the user to remove their password from the system.
Inspired by this, Richard began work on GNU (a Unix-like operating system). In his essay “The GNU Project,” he recalls that he loved working on an operating system because it is “the main software for using a computer.” Today, GNU uses the Linux kernel created by Torvalds. GNU is distributed under a copyright-preserving method that allows users to freely use, modify, copy, and distribute the software.
Stallman’s life continues to revolve around promoting free software. He has received wide recognition for his work, including various awards, fellowships, and four honorary doctorates.
5. Tsutomu Shimomura
Shimomura became famous by accident—his computer was hacked by Kevin Mitnick, and he later helped the FBI catch him.
Shimomura’s work in catching Mitnick is commendable, but he also has a dark side. Writer Bruce Sterling recalls, “He pulls out an AT&T cell phone, disables its electronic protection in one move, hacks it, and starts monitoring calls from various places on Capitol Hill, while an FBI agent hovers over him, eavesdropping.”
Shimomura wanted to hack back at Mitnick to bring him down. He assembled a team and began searching for his adversary. Using Mitnick’s cell phone, he tracked him down near Raleigh-Durham International Airport. According to the article “SDSC Experts Help FBI Capture Computer Terrorist,” Shimomura pinpointed Mitnick’s location with the help of a phone company specialist, using a radio direction-finding antenna connected to a laptop to narrow the search area to an apartment complex. Mitnick was soon arrested.
After the chase, Shimomura co-authored a book about the incident with journalist John Markoff, which was later made into a documentary film.
Article translation: http://www.itsecurity.com/features/top-10-famous-hackers-042407/