Forwarded From: Jeremy Mineweaser <jlmt_private> Family PC Magazine, November 1998 Issue Is Your Kid a Hacker? By Kevin Poulsen If you suspect your kid is a computer hacker, here's some advice from a convicted hacker on how to handle it It starts with a knock on the door. A dozen men in suits and shoulder holsters are outside, their Buicks and Broncos crammed into your driveway and parked along the street. Over their shoulders you can see your bathrobe-clad neighbors watching the spectacle from their lawns. It might be the FBI, it may be the Secret Service, but whoever it is, the humorless agents hand you a piece of paper and head toward your son or daughter's room. You wonder, perhaps for the first time, what your kid has been doing in there with the computer. If you're a parent, you probably regard the Internet as a font of both promise and peril for your children. It can be an invaluable learning tool and a way to encourage your kids to develop the basic computer skills they'll eventually need. But what if they take to it a little too eagerly and enthusiastically and begin using it to get into places where they don't belong? In that case, normal youthful rebellion, or simple inquisitiveness, if it's expressed over the Internet, could turn your family upside down. It happened last February in Cloverdale, California, when surprised parents found out their teenage son was suspected in a series of Pentagon intrusions. It happened again in Massachusetts a week later, when the Justice Department won its first juvenile conviction under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It happened to my family 15 years ago, in one of the first hacker raids in the country. At that time, I was the teenage miscreant who was illegally accessing federal computers. Now, in my early thirties, I've begun to wonder how I would protect a kid of my own from becoming a poster child for computer crime. I believe the best approach is to stay informed and to communicate with your potential cyberpunks. Open Communication Channels Some of the things you might view as ominous warning signs are actually quite harmless. For example, if your teenager calls himself a "hacker," he may not be headed for trouble. Despite the media's breathless exhortation, hackers are not lawbreakers by definition. The word actually describes someone with a talent for technology, a deep interest in how things work, and a tendency to reject any limitations. If your son disassembled the Giga Pet you gave him for Christmas, he's probably a hacker. If he made it run better, he definitely is. Of course, some hackers go further and test their skills against the adult world of corporate and governmental computer systems. If I thought my kids were cracking computers, I would want to put a stop to it -- though not because it's the crime of the century. True hackers live by an ethical code that precludes damaging systems or profiting from their intrusions. There are worse values for a teenager to have. But regardless of motives, a hacker who's caught in the act today is likely to be treated as an industrial spy or a national security threat. A single moment of rebellious exploration could land a teenager an early felony conviction. If you suspect that your kid may be crossing the line, there are various software packages on the market that will allow you to monitor or control his or her access to the Internet. Don't even think about using one. If your teen really is a hacker, your technological solution will be a source of amusement and derision, as well as an insult to his talents. Instead of putting up barriers, I suggest you talk to your kids. If your kid is reading underground Web sites for hackers, read them yourself. If he has a subscription to a hacker magazine, go through it and ask questions. Feel free to marvel at the cleverness of the latest hacker technique. Then talk about consequences: the rising costs of legal representation, the problems that a convicted felon encounters in academia and the job market. Start looking at alternatives to a life of cybercrime. Constructive Alternatives If your kid has a rebellious streak, I suggest giving up on trying to suppress it; try to channel it instead. When hackers grow up, they often find a reasonable substitute for the thrill of intrusion by working the other side. Ask your teen how he would plug the latest security holes. Get him thinking about it. Ask him for advice on protecting your own e-mail or your ISP account. The hacker tradition has always contained an element of disrespect for authority. Up until 15 years ago, cracking systems was an acceptable rite of passage in the industry, and some of the same people who pioneered artificial intelligence and the personal computer also ushered in phone phreaking, lock hacking, and computer intrusion. Early hackers believed that computers were a public resource and that access to them and knowledge about them should be free. In a sense, the first-generation hackers won their battle when they created the personal computer: It gave them free access to computing power anytime they wanted. Today, kids can claim that victory on the Internet by authoring a Web page. There is plenty of room for innovation and creativity. Today's PCs are as powerful as yesterday's mainframes. With today's PCs, no one needs to break the law to explore technology. With the right tools, and parental support, kids can earn the respect of their peers and get an early start on their future by mastering the latest programming languages. If my kid were a hacker, I'd encourage him to shun the instant gratification of cracking a Fortune 500 company in favor of the greater satisfaction of creating something unique from scratch. Ultimately, that's what hacking really is all about. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomot_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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