Richard Stallman, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Cap'n Crunch, Phiber Optik, Robert Morris, Kevin Mitnick, Vladimir Levin: these and others stand testament to the chaos one can wreak on technology, should a human mind put itself to the task.

In March 2000, Kevin Mitnick - believed to be the most notorious hacker of all time, and the first to have his face on an FBI 'Most Wanted' poster -- spoke before a committee looking into the US government's information systems' security. By stealing computer code from high-tech companies, Mitnick had, by that time, caused nearly $300 million in damage.

And you assumed hackers were a bunch of kids accessing PCs to check your address books?

There's nothing that defines who or what a hacker can look like. There are no certified reasons for their behaviour. Most importantly, they barely fit the stereotype most of us have created for them. For example, among the more famous of this ilk, Richard Stallman was once the recipient of a $240,000 MacArthur Foundation genius grant; Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson created UNIX way back in 1969; and Robert Morris introduced the word 'hacker' by accidentally unleashing an Internet worm in 1988!

But, first things first. There's a huge difference between a 'hacker' and 'cracker', with most of us mistaking the latter for the former. A 'cracker' is one who breaks security on a system, or tries to discover sensitive information. A 'hacker', on the other hand, can be someone who simply enjoys exploring programmable systems and stretching their capabilities.

Contrary to popular belief, hackers are not maladjusted psychopaths wielding a mouse to gain attention. Some are successful entrepreneurs; others, successful software developers; and most of them happen to be people who just love writing viruses above all else. They are also, unsurprisingly enough, predominately male.

The Hackers Hall of Fame documents famous cases in an attempt to figure out whether they fit into the 'modern-day Robin Hood' or 'educated thug' category.

The big question: Why do they do what they do? Does an inherent hatred for technology cause them to rebel? Do they despise the commercial aspect of infotech, and strive to create an equal platform where all human beings are techno savvy to a pre-determined degree? Is there a sense of power involved, coupled with the more practical aspect of anonymity that any virtual environment breeds? Relevant questions, with no definite answers to any.

Compare Internet fraud to a bank robbery, and most would opt for the former. Easier to execute, and a lesser chance of getting shot while at it.

The presence of hackers online is tremendous. They occupy their own special niches with pride, inviting us all in, at our own risk of course. They can be placed into three groups: white hats, black hats and grey hats - the good, bad, and in-betweens -- with their own codes, principles, and jargon.

Do you know that a 'back door' implies a hole deliberately left in place by designers of a network? Or that a 'bit bucket' is the universal data sink where all discarded data goes? Or that a 'Trojan horse' is a malicious, security-breaking program disguised as something benign? This Hackers Glossary is a good way of learning how to talk the talk.

Hackers and crackers also use a whole set of tools that include Denial of Service Attacks (locking out legitimate users from sites or networks), DNS Spoofing (redirecting browsers to alternate sites), Packet Sniffers (intercepting packets of information), Social Engineering (manipulating unwitting people into giving out information about a network), Web page defacements, viruses and worms. Take a look at some of the more famous web page defacements of our time at the mirrored archives of Attrition.org.

There are introductions to the basics of hacking, information on how to foil them, pages on the Internet's vulnerabilities, as well as interviews with hackers and security analysts. Time Asia, for one, interviewed hackers Eyestrain and Hiiro.

You could also buy some hacking tools if you like, courtesy Hackers Homepage with its suspicious-sounding catalogue covering phone phreaking, cracking and lock picking, satellite and cable TV hacking, miscellaneous and computer hacking.

Some pages have been put up by hackers themselves, serving as an intranet of sorts. 2600 magazine is one such quarterly that shot to fame after its editor distributed a program that breaks the security code on DVDs so they can be copied on to computers.

Similarly, Cult of the Dead Cow was set up by a group responsible for authoring and distributing the 'Back Orifice,' open-source software that allowed hackers to take over a remote computer. Hackers.com was created with 'an ethical mandate to cause no harm, and a crusade to redeem the image of hackers.

Will they succeed in appearing less menacing and more benign? Don't know about you, but I'm not revealing my credit card number online just yet.



ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
You can also try these links from RediffSearch for more on Hacking and Famous Hackers.

- Hacking and Computing Knowledge
- World Wide Web Security FAQ
- A Brief History of Hackerdom

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