There’s a huge difference between the two types of hackers out there today. While many people will say any hacker is a bad hacker (the law says so), intentions have to count for something here.
Posting questionable content on Facebook versus mucking with a water utility. Shutting down Dell’s Internet site for kicks versus disabling a uranium enrichment plant (that one’s a touchy subject, actually).
Is there any comparison between these types of hacks? I don’t think so. (The people from Dell will, I’m sure, disagree with me on that one—but all I’m talking about here is the intent behind the hacks.)
Earlier this fall the hacktivist group Anonymous said it was planning to attack Facebook (and probably did). Why? Because they believed (along with most other people, by the way) that Facebook violates the privacy of its users.
Earlier this month hackers from somewhere in Russia attacked a water utility in Illinois. Why? To attack the infrastructure of the United States. My guess is probably to see what was possible—start small with a rural water utility and work up to something bigger. Water treatment in New York City? Nuclear power plants?
Speaking of which…
Last year hackers disabled a uranium enrichment facility in Iran, setting back the entire Iranian nuclear power industry. That’s no idle hack. That’s a calculated attack on another country, just like the Illinois water utility this month.
The touchy part about that hack is that all signs point to the U.S. and Israel doing it. If so, it’s tantamount to bombing raids. The only difference is that cyberattacks are so new that they don’t have quite the same stigma as out-and-out warfare.
But this is what I’m talking about. The intent of hacktivists is to make a point, to stand up for the little guy (in most cases, anyway). They’re not trying to cripple a nation’s infrastructure or anything.
So while the law says all hackers are criminals, I believe we have to at least separate the two types of hackers.
And, yes, I’m lumping our own government into the criminal side of this because of the Iranian hack. Sorry, but it’s pretty black and white, at least within the confines of this argument, which judges on intent. (Of course, it’s not black and white beyond this argument.)
