obok2 privacy...

Hacking: Pro and Contra?

Do you know what a hacker is? Well, a hacker is a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems on computers and they like to stretch the capability of the systems. And you know what, the activities they do in the computers are called ‘hacking’.

So, what’s the problem with ‘hacking and its hackers’? Well, the problem is whether ‘hacking and its hackers’ is legal or illegal? What I mean is that people in the world have many different views about hacking and the hackers. Some of them take sides, but many object.

To get back to what I was saying previously, let us see the positive points of a hacker, shall we? Although in most places breaking into computer systems is considered illegal, I believe that hackers don’t do anything illegal because they only want to know and try the systems. I dare to say that a hacker likes finding the strengths and the weaknesses of a computer system. They feel proud if they can find the weaknesses. So I don’t really see the crimes in this case. In addition, these hackers sometimes help the police catch the ‘white collar criminals’, such as bank robbers, money launderers, credit card forgers. For example, in 2000, the U.S. hackers caught some Singaporean hackers who made ‘Virus Love’ to break up the programs of the U.S. National Security system.

Nevertheless, those who object to the good points of a hacker say that hacking is a crime. The reason is that some hackers use their brilliant skills to break into banks and other vital institutions where they can get money, destroy information, and the worst thing is they can get secret information and sell it to another country. This is a treachery.

Take for example, in 1994, The U.S. government broke a conspiracy of computer hackers out of Majorca, Spain. These hackers were responsible for accessing and eliminating 190,000 telephone credit card numbers over computer bulletin boards in America and Europe. Seeing this fact, I don’t blame those who think negatively about hackers.

To put the whole thing in a nut shell, I personally think that hackers are not bad people with their brilliant skills. However, they could be bad because of money orientation to get the wealth. That’s just the point.