Hackers Unite!

I am writing this entry because the topic is about something I would like to be doing in the future. Yes I would like to become a professional hacker but not to hack the government. Instead I want to help companies find flaws in their programming and security systems. I received this article from my grandmother over fall break. She knows that I would eventually like to work in the field of computer security so she collects news articles and magazines about computers to help me become more well rounded.

Ok, now to the article. The article is about a hacker’s convention that was held in Dayton, Ohio. Now these are not the people who try to hack your computer and steal all your information, these hackers hack secure systems to try to find flaws so that they can fix them. At this convention they discussed the newest security systems out there and if there were any major flaws in their coding.

Actually this is the second convention meeting for this group of elite hackers. At their first one, only a handful of people showed up and support was low. But after their successful run they were able to get more hackers and supporters. At their first convention, they predicted that it was possible for someone to hack into a secure website and steal information from it. Just imagine logging onto your bank account by putting in your password and account number. Without your knowledge, the password and account number are sent to a phony website where someone can view and copy them down. You have just had your bank account stolen and entirely without your knowledge. This is cyber terrorism. Luckily, a good hacker found the flaw in the coding and was able to help software firms and Internet providers fix it.

That was last year’s convention in a short snippet, but this year’s convention was all about vulnerabilities in visualization software and online services. These online services would be like MySpace, FaceBook, and Second Life. Yes, a college kid’s life. For as many hours as you are on it, telling people about your life, there is someone who is trying to hack your account and steal your personal information. The job of the convention is to discover new ways to protect online services since their security systems may not be top of the line like the government's. A hacker only needs a few back doors in a system to completely cripple the security protocols. These groups of hackers know this and spend their time hacking into online services to find those holes and close them for good to stop you from becoming a victim in a worldwide identity theft ring. If your identity is stolen you are done for. You cannot just recreate a new identity. You are you and if that is taken from you then life just got a shit load harder. So do everything you can to protect it, just like this hacker’s convention is doing. They are helping all of us by keeping us safe from cyber terrorism.

The convention also hacks to help the internet run more efficiently. Think about it; if everyone was online hacking the internet then there would be chaos. You would no longer be able to surf the web without running into problems with pages loading because they have been tampered with by some idiot on the other side of the world. It is also cheaper to keep internet security up to date because it costs more for companies to repair a web server than it does to just keep making improvements on its security.

Now do not think that these people are lame and just talk about computers the whole time. They actually have a computer security war. Everyone splits up into groups and work on trying to hack each other’s computers while defending their own from being hacked. They also will have a surprise guest from Japan. He is only known as Yamada Taro, meaning “John Doe” in Japanese, but he is one of the best hackers in the world and instead of being in a group, he will work alone to defend off attackers.

Thanks for reading this entry and hopefully it was not too boring for you.