Image Source: Wargames movie,
http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content08/wargames-hacker.jpg
These past few days, I’ve watched lots of folks scrambling to deal with the Twitter virus. I’ve seen the announcement about Twitter, endlessly re-tweeted…but to be honest, I wasn’t that engaged in the story until I saw this post sharing that the virus developer was a Brooklyn teenager. Wow.
It’s not unheard for teens to commit acts of piracy, hacking and virus-development. I still remember the enthusiasm with which some of my peers tried to hack into businesses, trying to find a way to get access to information systems available online. Those attacks seem clumsy by comparison these days…
A Brooklyn teenager has admitted to creating two viruses that have hit the popular micro-blogging site Twitter. Why did he do it? To promote his own website, and of course, because he was “bored”.
The “StalkDaily” and “Mikeyy” worms exploited unpatched holes in Twitter and spammed unwanted messages on thousands of user’s pages, promoting the teen’s web site as well as telling “Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy.”
Source: AfterDawn.com
I remember a peer, who at 14 years old, landed a job in California (we were in Texas at the time) because of his programming skills. He moved back to Texas a few years later, wealthier and a veteran programmer that has turned to enterprise. My wife and I introduced him to his wife, but I still remember him reading Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonbook series to improve his fantasy role-playing programming/story-writing ability.
What motivates teens to do this? I don’t know, unless it’s the thrill. However, consider this story out involving an 18 year old hacker being hired by a New Zealand company:
A teenage computer hacker who caused millions of dollars of damage as part of a global cybercrime ring has been hired by a New Zealand telecommunications company to provide security advice.
Owen Thor Walker was discharged without conviction as an 18-year-old last year after admitting six cybercrime charges.
He was the alleged brains behind a group of international hackers who used his programs to access personal data, send viruses around the world and commit other crimes, causing losses of 20 million US dollars, police said last year.
The motivation for going respectable now is probably to stay out of jail and “give back” to the people who kept you out of jail. Should we be teaching our children to hack the code to garner the kind of attention needed to land a big paying job?
Subscribe to Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org
Be sure to visit the ShareMore! Wiki.
Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure
Discover more from Another Think Coming
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Another Think Coming 
Hacking the code… is fun. Although I am still having to learn quite a bit that I lost during my years of pursuing math, if I had never known how to hack, I would not be in my position. I am now aware that I never understood networks, but that’s another story. At one point in time, ICQ made it extremely easy to get people’s IP addresses, and also during that time it was much easier to use it against them. And, it was just fun. Even though I was never all that good (always a n00b never a 733T), I can say that those teenagers that are getting in trouble for this are doing it for more than just the thrills. They think in codes, they have to do it. When the ISP shut our account down, my parents begged to get it back. They did so, agreeing they would not let me online. Of course, I had an hour to myself after school, and I “figured” out their password… so I got my hour addiction in. And now seeing Karma at work, I am now struggling to improve the same network I wreaked havoc in 10 years ago. I didn’t have any experience coming in, so the fact that they knew that may have been a deciding factor in hiring me. I’ve never asked.I saw this blog post, and it just made me reminisce, so I thought I would share and point out how proud I would be of a student if they hacked anything dealing with the school’s network.
Hacking the code… is fun. Although I am still having to learn quite a bit that I lost during my years of pursuing math, if I had never known how to hack, I would not be in my position. I am now aware that I never understood networks, but that’s another story. At one point in time, ICQ made it extremely easy to get people’s IP addresses, and also during that time it was much easier to use it against them. And, it was just fun. Even though I was never all that good (always a n00b never a 733T), I can say that those teenagers that are getting in trouble for this are doing it for more than just the thrills. They think in codes, they have to do it. When the ISP shut our account down, my parents begged to get it back. They did so, agreeing they would not let me online. Of course, I had an hour to myself after school, and I “figured” out their password… so I got my hour addiction in. And now seeing Karma at work, I am now struggling to improve the same network I wreaked havoc in 10 years ago. I didn’t have any experience coming in, so the fact that they knew that may have been a deciding factor in hiring me. I’ve never asked.I saw this blog post, and it just made me reminisce, so I thought I would share and point out how proud I would be of a student if they hacked anything dealing with the school’s network.