Hell ATS,
I welcome you to the first part of this three part series, this series will cover my view on the slow decline of competent hackers, and successful
Hacktivism.
I will mainly focus on the media profile built around Hacktivism
It is a given that there has been a significant rise in successful data breaches in this century alone.
(
The 15 Worst Data Breaches Of The 21st
Century)
In theory, the best possible way to reduce the amount of hacking of confidential information would be to frame the hackers for a crime that can only
be done in a digital environment.
This would essentially be the perfect scenario to take near full control of the internet, full control is nearly impossible and people would find a
way round this, likely using peer to peer networks to create a small network infrastructure that can reach out to other factions. This would
essentially create a rogue entity.
A rogue internet would simply be nearly impossible to control. This is a Hacktivists dream, an uncensored internet with no entity in control of the
structure.
Judging by the Feds way of handling hacking claims and hacking charges, the judgements made by those in power are simply harsh and unjustified
(
Swartz )
(Unless its phone hacking.... with the nothing to see here mentality from the media and justice system)
Swartz’s supposed crime was legally downloading thousands of academic articles from the online database JStor with the intent to illegally share
them on the Internet for free.
Does this sound like an abuse of computer system? A breach in security? A simple unbiased answer would be; NO, you could essentially compare this
crime to that of loaning too many books from a public library.
The fine line between hacker/terrorist/criminal is a delicate but easily broken one.
(
Hacker or
Criminal?)
We are now receiving a constant stream of negative articles regarding hacktivism, these corporations are happy to victimise the hackers for breaching
security, but have next to no explanation into how or why it happened in the first place. They focus on the negative and not the positive side to the
hacker breaching their security systems, the positive side being that he or she successfully hacked a system, therefore exposing the vulnerabilities
of a computer system.
The broken justice system has now led to hackers treading with extreme caution, an overall negative profile built around hacking or exposing
vulnerabilities.
The bottom line is the negative influences on hacktivism has now lead people to think of hacking negatively ,people now agree with the harsh and
unjustified punishments of those who breach security.
Slowly but surely hacking is on the decline, although the articles seem to say its on the rise, but only the prosecutions of those said activists
remain in the main stream media's agenda.