Hacker Subculture
Hacking and the Hacker Subculture
Overview of Hacking and the Hacker Subculture in relation to cyber crime: [1]Hacking has always been a social activity, bringing together communities of computer experts to discuss and share information about the machines they hack on. People who originally considered themselves hackers had creative and pranksterlike attitudes towards computing. But as computer and networking technologies became more advanced and more accessible, many new computer users assumed the hacker label and began to use the Hacker Ethic to justify criminal activities. The news media in turn reported on new forms of computer crime committed by these individuals, and this resulted in a general belief by the public that all activities labeled as hacking were illegal. Unfortunately, this was not true historically and remains a common source of confusion even today. As the legend of the criminal hacker was spread by news media, the common meaning of the word began to change. Movies such as Wargames, The Net, and Hackers further solidified the image of the criminal hacker in the public view. While the news media and popular entertainment pushed the hacker label farther away from the original Hacker Ethic, the community aspect of hacking remained. Criminal hackers banded together to form ”hacking groups” online through bulletin board and Internet relay chat (IRC) systems. These groups would brag about their latest exploits, which allowed law enforcement officers to access these online forums in order to gather evidence against criminal hackers.
Resources
Notes and References
1. By Nathan Fisk
See Also
- Types of Cybercrime
- Cybercriminal
Further Reading
IHTFPHack Gallery. (1997). SeeMIT IHTFPHack GalleryWeb site: https://hacks.mit.edu/; Levy, S., (1984), Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution, Harmondsworth,UK: Pengun; Stallman, R. (2004). The hacker’s ethics. Retrieved June 18, 2007, from The Cyberpunk Project Web site: https://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/ hacker_ethics.html; Sterling, B. (1992). The hacker crackdown. New York: Bantam.
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