Hackers. We’ve heard a lot of things about them – some say they are a danger to the computing society and others see them as potentially useful citizens with bright minds. Hackers do what they do either for personal gain or to find and repair flaws in a system. Hackers, themselves, follow what they call the Hacker Ethic. Based on whether the hack is considered legal or illegal, hackers are dubbed “White Hat Hackers” and “Black Hat Hackers” respectively. Adrian Lamo, a present-day hacker, helps us understand better the terms Hacker and Hacker Ethic.
Adrian Lamo – an introduction
The name Adrian Lamo came first to light when he broke into the systems of major organisations like New York Times, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Bank of America, Citigroup and Cingular. Lamo's intrusions consisted mainly of penetration testing, in which he found flaws in security, exploited them and then informed companies of their shortcomings. He did the same thing what White Hat hackers would do when hired by a company to do penetration testing, but was called an illegal hacker since he did so without the companies’ permission.
When he broke into The New York Times' intranet, things got serious. He added himself to a list of experts and viewed personal information on contributors, including Social Security numbers. Lamo also hacked into The Times' LexisNexis account to research high-profile subject matter.
For his intrusion at The New York Times, Lamo was ordered to pay approximately $65,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to six months of home confinement and two years of probation, which expired January 16, 2007.
In 2010, Lamo got involved in a WikiLeaks scandal, this time not as a hacker. He reported to the US authorities that Bradley Manning leaked tens of thousands of pages of classified US government data, including the infamous video footage of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike incident in Iraq. Although a supporter of the WikiLeaks website, Lamo believed that Manning was endangering national security, which is why he reported Manning.
The Hacker and the Hacker Ethic
From Lamo’s example, we see that hackers do not always hack for personal gain. Some feel a religious ecstasy from their technological adventures. The fact that Lamo reported security flaws back to the companies he hacked into reveals that Lamo was indeed just trying to find flaws in the system and trying to help the companies. Of course he must have felt a deep sense of satisfaction by successfully breaking into the world’s largest computer systems, but his intentions were genuine.
Hackers are defined by their recklessness and deep obsession with technology. They don’t care about what will happen if they get caught as long as they accomplish in what they do.
One of the most important features of the Hacker Ethic is the belief that all information should be free and available to all. This was why Lamo supported WikiLeaks. In spite of that, he reported Manning – which shows in him a sense of responsibility, too.
Hackers also believe that computers are an extraordinary tool and will change our lives for the better, as they can be used in countless different ways. The Hacker Ethic is against decentralization of technology. Hackers feel that technology should not be encapsulated within the shell of a small organization, but should rather be shared with the people. Only then is technology at its most useful. Just think of it – had it not been for hackers like Steve Wozniak, the personal computer couldn’t have seen the light of day.
By Pranav R Kamat
References:
1. Wikipedia – Adrian Lamo
2. The Social Meaning of the Personal Computer: Or, Why the Personal Computer Revolution Was No Revolution by Bryan Pfaffenberger
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