Hacking and Computer Crime

Hacking and Computer Crime-

A large part of computer security is concerned with the protection of computer resources and data against unauthorized, intentional break-ins or disruptions. Such actions are often called hacking. Hacking, is the use of computer skills to gain unauthorized access to computer resources. Hackers are highly skilled computer users that use their talents to gain such access, and often form communities or networks with other hackers to share knowledge and data. Hacking is often also defined, more negatively, as the gaining of such unauthorized access for malicious purposes: to steal information and software or to corrupt data or disrupt system operations. Self-identified hackers, however, make a distinction between non-malicious break-ins, which they describe as hacking, and malicious and disruptive break-ins, which they call cracking. Self-identified hackers often justify their hacking activities by arguing that they cause no real harm and instead have a positive impact. The positive impact of hacking, they argue, is that it frees data to the benefit of all, and improves systems and software by exposing security holes. The reconsideration are part of what has been called the hacker ethic or hacker code of ethics, which is a set of (usually implicit) principles that guide the activity of many hackers. Such principles include convictions that information should be free, that access to computers should be unlimited and total, and that activities in cyberspace cannot do harm in the real world. Various professionals have argued that many principles of the hacker ethic cannot be sustained. The belief that information should be free runs counter to the very notion of intellectual property, and would imply that creators of information would have no right to keep it to themselves and have no opportunity to make a profit from it. It would moreover fundamentally undermine privacy, and would undermine the integrity and accuracy of information, as information could be modified and changed at will by anyone who would access it. A school of thought, that the helpfulness of hacking in pointing to security weaknesses may not outweigh the harm it does, and that activities in cyberspace can do harm in the real world.

Both hacking and cracking tend to be unlawful, and may therefore be classified as a form of computer crime, or cybercrime, as it has also been called. There are many varieties of computer crime, and not all of them compromise computer security. There are two major types of cybercrime that compromise computer security: 

• cybertrespass, which is defined as the use of information technology to gain unauthorized access to computer systems or password-protected websites, and
• cybervandalism, which is the use of information technology to unleash programs that disrupt the operations of computer networks or corrupt data.

Another type of cybercrime that sometimes includes breaches of computer security, cyberpiracy.  

Cyberpiracy, also called software piracy, is the use of information technology to reproduce copies of proprietary software or information or to distribute such data across a computer network. Cyberpiracy is much more widespread than cybervandalism or cybertrespass, because it does not require extensive computer skills and many computer users find it morally permissible to make copies of copyrighted software and data. Cyberpiracy involves breaches in computer security when it includes the cracking of copyright protections. Another type of cybercrime that sometimes involves breaches of computer security is computer fraud, which is deception for personal gain in online business transactions by assuming a false online identity or by altering or misrepresenting data. Computer fraud may depend on acts of cyber trespass to obtain passwords, digital identities, or other transaction or access codes, and acts of cybervandalism involving the modification of data. Other types of cybercrime, such as the online distribution of child pornography or online harassment and libel, usually do not involve breaches of computer security.