Criminals with a Microsoft touch

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk () c4i org>

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. Gray, USMC
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