Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk@private> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/363504.html By Limor Gal November 21, 2003 When the subject is computers, Dr. Orly Turgeman Goldschmidt is more cautious than the average computer-user. She works on two computers and she never saves important files on the computer that is linked to the Internet. She updates her anti-virus software program every day and continually saves the documents on her computer. After interviewing 54 hackers and after two of them - who did not manage to get the names of the other interviewees from Turgeman - managed to break into her computer, she is taking no chances. Turgeman, who teaches in Tel Aviv University's sociology department, had interviewed the hackers for her doctoral dissertation. The subject: how hackers, or computer criminals, perceive themselves. (The dissertation was written at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Prof. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, currently dean of the university's Faculty of Social Sciences, was her adviser.) The crimes that hackers commit fall into three main categories: copyright infringement (breaking into and duplicating copyright-protected software), hacking (breaking into databases and Internet sites; fraudulently using Internet and credit-card accounts, and databases; and disseminating computer viruses) and "phreaking" (the term for cracking phone networks in order to make free phone calls). In her dissertation, Turgeman wanted to examine the explanations hackers gave for their behavior in an effort to legitimize their actions. In the 1990s, when she did her research, the commonly held image of a hacker was an isolated individual incapable of communicating with others. "I was surprised to discover," says Turgeman, "that they were warm, sociable people with warm families and that many loved to play pranks and were iconoclasts in their childhood." Apparently, the average Israeli hacker resembles hackers the world over. Generally speaking, hackers are young, well-educated men without a criminal record, who belong to the middle or upper class. In Israel, they are, for the most part, Ashkenazim, secular, leftist and residents of the central part of the country. Most of them are unmarried, although some hackers are married and, in some cases, have children. Among the 54 hackers she interviewed, only three were women. The small percentage of women apparently stems from women's meager presence in information technology-related professions. "In my opinion, women still feel like outsiders in the computer field," observes Turgeman. "This is a male environment, with a warlike atmosphere. Moreover, competitiveness and aggressiveness are characteristics found more among men than among women. And that is also the way society views women. One of the female hackers I interviewed, for example, told me that she used to work in a computer store. People would ask her whether `someone could help them.' `What's wrong with me? I'm not "someone,' she would reply. `Do you think I'm just here for decoration?'" As one would expect, hackers need to operate undercover. Thus, in order to find interviewees, Turgeman had to do some detective work and, through journalists, conferences and Web sites, she managed to find hackers willing to talk to her. To prevent anyone from using her data to locate the interviewees, she did not tape the conversations or record details that could identify them. Even in her notes, she employed numbers, not names, to catalog the hackers. Some interviewees referred her to colleagues, but most of them refused to do so. "Sometimes, the motive for the refusal was that they wanted to play a sort of game with me," she explains. "They tried to challenge me. There were cases where I would contact a hacker only to hear the words, `I was wondering when you'd show up.' Those hackers knew I was looking for them, but waited until I myself contacted them." Like an addiction A love of challenges is a characteristic trait of hackers. The prime factors driving them are the enjoyment and thrill they derive from their activities and the opportunity they have to satisfy a need to compete, and to feel in control. "One friend told me, `If you can break into this one, then you're really great,'" the doctoral researcher wrote, quoting Shai, a 43-year-old computer science teacher, who was married with four children. "It's sort of a duel with somebody on the other side. In other words, that person planned something and, through what I am able to do, I am, in effect, saying, `You planned it and I broke into it.' It's an addiction, like taking drugs." "When you crack a code, it gives you an amazing feeling," said Gad, a 26-year-old computer expert. "Thrills, fun, adrenaline." Some hackers use their know-how for revenge. Eran, the 22-year-old owner of a computer firm, for example, related to Turgeman how one teacher really angered him and caused his school to expel him. In Eran's view, this teacher had earned the "right" to get into hot water: Thus, one day, a compact-disc player, bought with a stolen VISA credit card, was delivered to her house. Most hackers do not consider themselves criminals and they offer various explanations to justify their actions. For instance, 83 percent of them claimed they were driven by curiosity and by a desire to learn and know as much as possible, while 72 percent believed that the prices software developers demanded were ridiculously high and were unjustified. "Sometimes, when you copy software, you're performing a moral act, while, sometimes, you're not," argued Ami, a 19-year-old computer science student. "It's morally okay to copy from Microsoft, although the downside is that you're helping to distribute their software. But it's not morally okay to copy the software of companies whose livelihood depends on that software. Like small companies with unique software. It's a different story with Microsoft - I feel it's my moral obligation to screw them." Bar, a 21-year-old soldier: "It's healthy to copy software as long as you don't use it to make a profit. If the copy is for personal use to help you study, understand something better, evaluate a software program, I'm in favor. If there's a software application that can promote something so that it can improve the world, why shouldn't it be available to us?" Turgeman's study revealed that most hackers defined themselves as extremely smart and extremely talented. As it turns out, they are not the only ones who think they are God's gift to humanity. Apparently, the image that society has of hackers is generally positive. In an article that appeared in Haaretz in 2000, for example, the head of the computer crimes team in the Israel Police's National Fraud Unit, Chief Superintendent Meir Zohar, was quoted as saying that the public perceived these criminals as young pranksters and even crowned them with a shining halo. In the case of Yaron, 39, a former hacker who now owns an information security company, the court's verdict reflected a sympathetic attitude toward hackers. The judge "saw the situation in the correct light," Yaron told Turgeman, "unlike the police." In the 1980s, Yaron was charged with breaking into the Yedioth Ahronoth daily's system and planting a fictitious item on one of the teachers in his school. The judge considered the incident a "prank" and decided not to convict him. Sympathetic attitude Turgeman suggests several reasons for the public's sympathetic view of hackers. First, hackers do not fit the stereotype of the dangerous criminal, but seem closer to the image of your average citizen. Second, society highly regards anything connected with information, progress and technology. "Reports in the press on computer-assisted crime describe it as a sophisticated form of crime," writes Nuri Bar Chava in the 1993 book on computers called "Makhshephobia," "and the prevailing term used to describe these criminals is `computer genius.' Sometimes, you can even feel that the journalist admires the level of sophistication that the criminal seems to have displayed. Generally, you do not sense that same sort of admiration when the news item concerns an ordinary criminal who threw a punch at the boss or burned the boss's car." Another reason for society's sympathetic attitude is that it is difficult to understand the meaning of such crimes. They are not concrete - in contrast with, say, a burglary. Furthermore, apparently, Israeli society is happy when someone has managed to "screw the system," whether "the system" is the Knesset Web site or Microsoft. For instance, the interviewees' families knew about their activities, took pride in them and, in some cases, even used the services the hacker "provided," such as free access to expensive software, free phone calls or access to personal information on various people. Turgeman herself was told by some of the interviewees, at the beginning of their interviews, where she lived, how many children she had, and what her marital status was. "The first time that happened I was frightened," she recalls, "but, after a while, I just got used to it." *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. 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