Hmmm, I wonder what it is that motivates the high tech vandals who hack into websites and unleash nasty viruses to scurry through our e-mail chatter wreaking havoc.
One of my sites was hacked recently. It was a minor attack as hacking goes but it did require a reload of the software to remedy the situation. I suppose I should be flattered that he/she thought my site was worthy of their time and effort. Or maybe they found out that my sites are actually a front for the Canadian Intelligence Agency’s… Oops, I’m not supposed to talk about that. Forget I mentioned it.
Back to the motivation question. These individuals are clearly highly skilled techies who have devoted no small amount of time to becoming experts in their field. So what makes them decide to abuse this knowledge?
I think for some of them it’s an expression of discontent. Somewhere along the way they’ve been screwed over by the “system” and this is their way of evening the score. If we ever tracked them down they would probably tell us: “It’s nothing personal. You’re just collateral damage.”.
For others it may be as simple as “because I can”. In other words, the same reason Bill Clinton strayed with Monica Lewinsky – the thrill of operating outside the rules and getting away with it.
I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that some of these individuals are simply tech addicts. Somewhere along the way the tested the waters just to see if they could pull it off. They never intended to make a regular practice of it. But once they got a taste of that power to cause chaos they simply couldn’t resist the urge.
This brings us to the final category of hostile hackers and virus vandals. The ones who willfully, and with malicious intent, set out to commit acts of destructiveness. There is, I believe, nothing in it for them beyond an expression of hostility. They’re simply mad at the world and crashing computer systems is how they strike out at the enemy.
It seems the high tech vandals are not really that mysterious after all. They’re simply metaphors for the various ways that people come to inhabit the fringes of society. They’re not new and they’re not going to go away.
We create passwords for our chunks of cyberspace for the same reason we put locks on our houses. There will always be individuals who have a perverse need to get inside and mess up our stuff or steal our valuables.
I’ve changed the passwords to my site and made them (hopefully) impossible to crack. So beware. Now that they can’t sneak into my virtual house they may move on to yours.
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Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel”. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
Tags: cyberspace · hackers · metaphorNo Comments