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Hackers great and small

The term "hacker" can refer to a lot of different types of people.

The term "hacker" can refer to a lot of different types of people.

On the one hand you have the criminals, breaking into digital vaults to steal information that they hope to turn into money - whether its credit card numbers, personal data or compromising photos of celebrities.

Then you have the nuisance groups like LulzSec, which break into and attack systems purely for shits and giggles. They don't steal data, just disrupt and annoy.

Move one step to the left and you'll find the so-called benevolent hackers, which come in many varieties: there are the security hawks that try to break into systems just to prove that they're vulnerable, who then share that information with the system's gatekeepers so they can beef up their protection.

There are the truth hackers who use their skills to bring information to light, some of it that might be embarrassing to companies or individuals. The collective know as "Anonymous" are among the most prominent "hacktivists" on the network these days, sometimes using their abilities to aid protestors in countries like Iran, and sometimes targetting people and organizations that they feel deserve a kick in the virtual groin - like Sony for its harmful DRM software or white supremacist Hal Turner.

Then there are the open source hardware and software hackers, who believe that once they've purchased a piece of software or hardware - like a phone or the Kinect - then they should be free to do whatever they want with it, whether it's jailbreaking an operating system so they can use their software of choice or adapting a device for another use. These guys are my favourite hackers, and some of the most creative people in technology today.

Most ominously, we also have what can only be referred to as state-sponsored hackers, online spies that are in the employ of governments or companies with ties to government. It's this type of hacker that is making the news these days, with attacks on the CIA, prominent American defense contractors, prominent American companies like Google, and so on.

The nature of these attacks make them difficult to track, but there's evidence that a lot of it originates in China. The Chinese government denies any of it of course and claims that rogue elements in that country are responsible rather than the state, or that the accusations are baseless and were created to discredit China.

Some people aren't buying it. In his recent column in the Wall Street Journal , Richard Clarke suggests that China is far from innocent and is using cyber espionage to advance its own military technology and its hegemony over technology manufacturing.

"Senior U.S. officials know full well that the government of China is systemically attacking the computer networks of the U.S. government and American corporations," wrote Clarke. "Beijing is successfully stealing research and development, software source code, manufacturing know-how and government plans. In a global competition among knowledge-based economies, Chinese cyberoperations are eroding America's advantage."

The incentive for hackers, government-sanctioned or not, is that you can steal decades of research and development and billions of dollars in product investment in a matter of moments.

It's not that far-fetched. Companies that have technologies manufactured in China do so knowing that the technology will most likely be stolen and duplicated by companies there who will turn around and sell the same technology for a lower price. The companies tolerate it because most of the knock-offs are only sold in China and because they know they'll have a full six-to-12-month lead-time before the technology is obsolete anyway.

The big question is what western governments can do in response. The answer, as long as China holds so much of the west's debt, is not much, although the U.S. response going forward seems to be skipping diplomacy and going immediately on counterattack - treating every incursion as a military threat, and counter-hacking the hackers to cause as much damage and embarrassment as possible.

The head of the CIA said just last week that "The next Pearl Habor that we face could well be a cyber attack," which suggests that the U.S. will focus more resources on cyber defence and retaliatory attacks.

The concept of a cyber war is not so far-fetched, as a foreign nation could cripple another's power grid, water system, transit system, financial system, air traffic control system, military systems and satellite networks, all without firing a single shot.

The good news is that whatever tactic the U.S. and other nations come up with to protect their data and facilities can be applied to the other breeds of hackers as well. It's just good to see someone taking the threat seriously.

 

Rioters getting social justice?

The Vancouver Canucks riot - the 2011 one, not the 1994 version - was still underway when the social networks took over. One site organized thousands of people to come to downtown Vancouver and help clean-up the wreckage. Another was dedicated to identifying some of the people responsible for torching cars, breaking windows, looting, fighting and doing all kinds of other damage. Within 24 hours, some half dozen culprits had already been identified from photos and video. It's a unique lesson - nobody is anonymous anymore as long as people know what you look like!