"Hacker", in the original meaning of the word, is a person who loves researching the details of programmable systems, studying the issues of enhancing their capabilities, programming something enthusiastically and simply loving programming. Also, a “hacker” is a person who is an expert in a particular field (for example, a description of a person as “Unix hacker” means that a person is an expert in using this system, but a person can also be an “astronomy hacker” that says that he is an expert in this field). "Hacker" can also be called a person who loves intellectual challenges, consisting in creative overcoming or circumventing existing limitations.

Recently, the word “hacker” is used to identify a person who uses his or someone else’s knowledge in the field of computer and other high technologies to commit criminal activities, such as, for example, illegal entry into closed networks. There are also less generalized types of “hackers”: carders (hacking and illegal use of information on other people's credit cards), crackers (hacking protection of software products under copyright protection), script kiddies (using ready-made exploits and vulnerabilities to commit hacks), network pirates (engaged in the unauthorized distribution of software products protected by copyright and other related rights), etc.

“Hackers” who use their skills and knowledge for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of society are also called “White Hats”. Often they are also called "Ethical hackers". These "hackers" who do not violate the laws are often hired by companies to research and test the security of their systems. Other “White Hats” operate without the permission of companies, bypassing, but without violating the laws and integrity of systems, as well as inventing new interesting things.
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“Hackers” who use their skills and knowledge for personal gain, violation of the law and other illegal actions are called “Black Hats”.

"White Hats"

In this part of the article, several of the most famous “White caps” and their inventions and technologies that they have created are considered.

Stephen Wozniak

He is also called - Woz, as well as he is known as Steve from Apple. Wozniak and Jobs founded Apple Computer. Woz started hacking with the creation of blue-boxes, which allow users to bypass the switching mechanisms in telephone lines, which allows you to make long-distance calls for free. Jobs and Woz sold these blue boxes to fellow students and even used it themselves to call the Pope, pretending to be Henry Kissinger.

Wozniak dropped out of college and invented the computer that made him famous. Jobs had the idea to sell these computers as a complete device. They thought about this and the idea and embodied it in the garage of Jobs. Wozniak and Jobs sold the first 100 Apple I to a local retailer for $ 666.66 each.

At the moment, Woz has concentrated on charity and is no longer working for Apple in full-time work. Wozniak "adopted" the school district of Los Gatos, providing teachers and students with practical training and the latest technical support.

Tim Berners-Lee

Berners-Lee is respected for having invented the World Wide Web (WWW). Berners-Lee received many awards, including the Millennium Technology Prize.

Berners-Lee was first caught hacking when he cracked access codes with his friend while studying at Oxford. After he was banned from accessing university computers.

Berners-Lee realized that hypertext can be connected to the Internet. Berners-Lee recalls how he did it: “I only needed to take the idea of ​​hypertext, connect it with the ideas of TCP and DNS, and ... Voila! - The World Wide Web.

After the invention of the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The W3C Consortium describes itself as “an international consortium, where organizations are consortium members, consortium employees, and third-party people working together to create web standards.” The idea of ​​the Berners-Lee World Wide Web, as well as the W3C standards, are distributed free of charge without patents or legal fees.

Linus torvalds

Linus is the founding father of Linux, a popular Unix-based operating system. He calls himself an engineer, and says that his goal is simple: "I just want to have fun creating the best operating system in the world."

Acquaintance of Torvalds with computers began with Comodore VIC-20, 8-bit home computer. Later, he switched to Sinclair QL. Wikipedia reports that it has significantly modified its Sinclair, in particular, the operating system, and more specifically, Torvalds’s modifications consisted of "an assembler, a text editor, as well as in several games."

Torvalds created the Linux kernel in 1991, using the Minix operating system for inspiration. He started with a task switch for the 80386 platform and a terminal window. After that, he appealed to other programmers so that they could contribute. Currently, about 2% of the Linux kernel code is written by Torvalds himself. The success of this public invitation to code changes is one of the most famous examples of free software.

At the moment, Torvalds serves as the leader of the Linux fraternity and coordinates all the changes that volunteer programmers make to the kernel code. An asteroid was named in his honor, he received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Stockholm and the University of Helsinki, as well as his name is mentioned in Time Magazine “ 60 Years of Heroes ”.

Richard Stallman

Stallman's fame comes from the GNU Project, which he founded to develop a free operating system, and for this he is considered the father of free software.

His “serious biography” says: “Paid software leaves people helpless and makes them waver, forbidding them to share and change it. A free operating system is the basis for people to use computers freely. ”

Stallman, who prefers to be called rms, started hacking at MIT. He worked as a full-time hacker on the Emacs project and others. He was critical of limited access to the lab. When the password protection system was installed, Stallman hacked it, reset the passwords and sent users a letter about the cancellation of the system.

Stallman's crusade in the name of free software began because of the printer. In the MIT laboratory, he and other “hackers” were allowed to change the printer code so that they gave clear error messages. However, a new printer arrived in which they were forbidden to change anything. He was far away from the laboratory, and the lack of reports caused inconvenience. It was at that moment that he "became convinced that the software should be free."

Inspired by this, he began working on GNU. Stallman wrote an essay on “The GNU Project” in which he chose to work on the operating system, because it is the basis, “the key software for using a computer.” At that moment, the GNU / Linux version of the operating system used the Linux kernel started by Torvalds. The GNU operating system is licensed under copyright, which uses copyright to allow users to use, modify, copy, and distribute software.

Stallman's life continues to revolve around promoting the idea of ​​free software. He works against movements such as Digital Rights Media (or Digital Restrictions Management as he likes to call it), with the help of organizations such as the Free Software Foundation and League of Programming Freedom. For his work he received wide recognition, as well as awards, scholarships and four honorary doctoral degrees.

Tsutomu Shimomura

Shimomura achieved fame not in the best way: he was hacked by Kevin Mitnick. Shocked by this attack, he made it his life’s goal to help the FBI catch him.

Shimomura's job of capturing Kevin Mitnick deserves praise, but he himself is not sinless. Bruce Sterling recalls: “He pulls out an AT & T mobile phone, unpacks it, parses it and starts listening to phone conversations going through Capitol Hill, while the FBI officer stands behind him and listens to him.”

Shimomura made Mitnick hack him to find him. Shortly after discovering the burglary, he assembled a team and continued work on the capture of Mitnick. Using Mitnick's mobile phone, they tracked him at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The article “SDSC computer experts help the FBI to catch a computer terrorist” talks about how Shimomura managed to locate Mitnick. Together with a technician from the telephone company Shimomura, “used the antenna for frequency locating, connected to a laptop, in order to narrow the search to a residential complex”. Soon Mitnick was arrested. In the wake of this, Shimomura, together with journalist John Markoff, wrote a book about what happened, which was later filmed.

"Black Hats"

The people described below belong to the kind of “hackers” in which we are used to them. You may have seen them being arrested for cyber crime, at a time when they just came out of transition age. Some of them committed crimes for the sake of profit, someone exclusively for fun.

Kevin Mitnick

Mitnick is probably already synonymous with the word "hacker." The US Department of Justice still calls him “the most wanted computer criminal in all of US history.” His actions were commemorated by films such as Takedown and Freedom Downtime.

Mitnick began his journey with the hacking of the Los Angeles system of issuing cards for buses, so he got the opportunity to ride on them for free. Then, like Steve Wozniak from Apple, Mitnick tried to do phone phreaking. For the first time, Mitnick was convicted for penetrating a DEC computer network and stealing software.

Later, for two and a half years, Mitnick was engaged in “hacking activities” on both sides of the continent. He reported that he had hacked computers, sneaked into telephone networks, stole corporate secrets, and penetrated the national attack prevention system. His sunset came when he hacked into a computer expert and hacker’s home computer, Tsutomu Shimomura.

Now Mitnick is a useful member of society. After being in solitary confinement for 5 years and 8 months, he is now the author of protective computer systems, a consultant and a lecturer in computer security.

Adrian lamo

Lamo did serious damage to large organizations, breaking into the networks of Microsoft and the NY Times. Lamo used Internet connections everywhere: in cafes, Kinko and libraries to improve his skills. Because of this, he earned himself a nickname - Homeless Hacker. Lamo often found security bugs and hacked them. He also often informed companies about errors.

Lamo's list of victories includes companies such as: Yahoo !, Citigroup, Bank of America and Cingular. Of course, the White Hats did the same, but they did it legally, and the companies hired them to perform these actions, and Lamo acted in violation of the laws.

Lamo’s invasion of the NY Times network attracted the attention of opponents of cyber crime. For this, the court ordered him to pay $ 65,000 in compensation. In addition, he was sentenced to 6 months of house arrest and 2 years of probation. The trial period expired in January 2007. Now Lamo is a renowned lecturer and journalist.

Jonathan james

In 16 years, Jonathan became widely known due to the fact that he became the first juvenile sent to prison for "hacking". Later, he said that he was entertained, looked around and enjoyed challenging tasks.

James attacked high-level organizations, including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is part of the US Department of Defense. Thanks to this hack, he gained access to usernames and passwords, and was able to view letters of high secrecy.

Continuing the list of his “victories”, it should be noted that he managed to penetrate the NASA network and steal software worth more than $ 1.5 million. The Ministry of Justice said: “The software that James stole is responsible for the life support system of international space stations, including system of monitoring temperature and humidity in the residential compartments. ”After the discovery of hacking, NASA had to turn off the system to check and bring it to working condition, which cost the taxpayers $ 41,000. Today, James plans to open a computer security company danger.

Robert Tappan Morris

Robert is the son of a former NSA scientist named Robert Morris. He is the creator of the Morris worm. This worm is the first computer worm to be spread via the Internet. For his actions, he was the first person who was prosecuted under the 1986 act of “Computer fraud and violation of rights”.

Morris created the worm when he studied at Cornell, and said that he created it in order to find out how great the Internet was at that time. And the worm spread through the network uncontrollably and at tremendous speed, shutting down many computers, causing them to malfunction. Experts claim that more than 6,000 computers have been damaged. Morris was sentenced to 3 years probation, 400 hours of community service and ordered to pay $ 10,500.

Now Morris is a full-time professor at MIT at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence laboratory. Its area is the architecture of computer networks.

Kevin Poulsen

Better known as Dark Dante. Poulsen gained public fame thanks to the hacking of telephone lines of Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. This hacking allowed him to win Porsche and many other valuable prizes.

The FBI began searching for Powles after he hacked into their database and gained access to sensitive information regarding telephone tapping. Poulsen’s specialization concerned the telephone lines, and he often hacked the telephone lines of the stations. Poulsen also restored the old Yellow Pages phone numbers to his friend, who owned a virtual escort agency. Poulsen was like an unsolvable problem, but was soon caught and sentenced to 5 years.

Since his release from prison, Poulsen worked as a journalist and was promoted to the post of editor in chief of Wired News. His most popular article describes the process of identifying 744 sex maniacs by their MySpace profiles.

Used materials:

Wikipedia
Marvquin