Hello All - I don''t mean to step on anybodies toes, but I feel very strongly about this subject, and I would just like to express my opinion. At least here I can feel like I have a captive audience! :-) The past few days hackers have been getting alot of attention for the web sprees, and I have to say that the hackers out there disappoint me. I can see your point of view. Who hasn''t ever wondered if they could commit the perfect crime? Posessing a skill with computers, who wouldn''t like to try to break into something. I always thought that it would be fun to plan and carry out the perfect hack, but does that mean that I ever tried. No! I have more respect for people in general than that. So often we consider only what we want instead of what the person on the receiving end might feel about it. Imagine that you had a internet business that was doing very well, and you were on the verge of becoming the first trillionaire. Then all of a sudden a group of hackers penetrate your site creating havoc. Of course newspapers all across the country carry the story, and suddenly your clients don''t feel very safe, so they stop using your service. Other clients sue for mental damages derived from the whole experiance leaving you with nothing. How would you feel? Now I can imagine any hackers out there thinking to themselves, I would never let my site be so insecure that anyone could hack it. Impossible. There is nothing that is completely secure. You advertise your site to be secure you will have thousands of hackers that will try their hardest to prove to you that it isn''t secure. There is always a new way to do anything. I realize that my illustration was greatly exagerated, but it was the best way to present my point. I am sorry that I ranted for so long, but I feel very strongly about this. One last thing, I ask all of you older hackers, be a good influence on kids. Teach them not to use their skills for illegal purposes, but for something good. We have two choices in our life, are we going to make a positive impact on society, or only a burden. Our actions today build tomorrow. Later

I feel the same to you in alot of ways, with the only exception been that I don't even feel the need\want to hack. Of course I am always trying to hack my favourite games in some way, but that is not crossing the law, is it?

I belive hackers are usually disturbed people trying to prove something in the wrong way...

Hopefully amazon and ebay, etc. will have there servers back online with extra hacker-free software up...

I am glad that you wrote about such a topic...




~Spike

You can contact me at
Luke1Howard@hotmail.com

Edited by - Spike on 2/11/00 6:08:45 AM

Please note that the headlines regarding Amazon.com, Yahoo, E*Trade, etc isn''t about hacking attempts, it''s denial of service attacks.

In these cases the security system hasn''t anything to do with it, what the "hackers" do is to overload the servers by using some kind of distributional clients (probably).

For example, the highly popular Seti@Home or RC5 Crypto-cracking challenge. If all those clients at one time all requested and sent data to a single site, it''ll sure go down. But still, it isn''t a hack.

Agreed with previous comments, good original post Bomb.

What frightens me is that you can''t take down Yahoo with a couple of PCs. It takes a lot of hardware to bring down these sites. Which leaves us with:

a) There are very few hackers, but they each have a sh*tload of hardware at their disposal;

or

b) There are a LOT of people whose morals are "flexible" enough to attack a site for no reason.

Either scenario is pretty scary.

Mason McCuskey
Spin Studios - home of Quaternion, 2000 GDC Indie Games Fest Finalist!
www.spin-studios.com

Yeah, there''s been a good deal of misinformation being reported about the situation in general. Most stories I''ve seen from non-computing-related sources have indicated that the hackers have broken into the systems, when this is obviously not the case. We can''t give these people that much credit. =)

-Nick

I got one thing to say here! I think you are refering to crackers! Crackers are like hackers but do bad things! Hackers are enyone who hass ectensive knowledge of computers Programmers are conciderd hackers they try to figure how things work not destroy them! Thanx for hereing my $.02!

node_5r

I am sorry but if you have that much free time on your hands to attack sites such as those that where attacked you are either a loser with very little of a thing called a life or just plain ignorant...do you think that in the end you have really accomplished anything? I sure hope not, ebay, yahoo, ect.. will all survive. All they have really done is cause a slight irratation to the users of the site more then anything else. And to call these kids hackers is a compliment they don''t deserve...script kiddies, if anything, is all that they are...a 10 year old could pull of such a stunt and to be honest with you i hope that that is what they are because anything else but is just pathetic. I would like to think someone older and more mature then a 10 year old would have more common sense...btw, i bet they are just rolling in all this attention they are recieving....its a good possiblity they wont even be caught.

my say in the matter
OME

Well

There is actualy some chance to cath this (or those) guy (or girl but this will suprise me), they talk about this on tv here at montreal, and they said this guy must have used many computers to do this, so he probably used the ones he could find at his work (or at school).

If he try again he may get cauth, or his "work" could be discover....this guy is not necercerly a genius (the program he used was on a hacker page) and it is not sure than he know how to get safe!

I hope they will cath him....there is chance

Die hackers Die you ba@&*/$!!!!

These kinds of people should put their talent to good use (though not these people in particular - talent is absent). Quit wasting everyone''s time and money trying to prove a point. Destroying things, whether real or virtual, generally helps nobody.

I agree with the statement that hackers are not crackers, and the other one that everyone''s story (just about) is wrong. But please, give ten-year-olds some credit. They aren''t all stupid or immature, any more than the people in a specific race or gender or any other group.


Lack

I believe that hacking is ok for the purpose of gathering information that may not pose potential harm to anyone or is personal. But those agro-hackers out there that are willing to down systems and steal dangerous personal information and profit from it just need to die. They bring a bad name to us all.

Peace Love Empathy
Kurt
E-Mail-ttlnirvana@aol.com
IRC-y2Kurt
AIM-MadeTheBedIDieIn

*Another day in a boring town with the same old crowd*