The revenge of the nerds

This film showing provided many insights into a world so prevalent today yet so alien to us common folk. The internet has many facets to it. We commonly use it to email, surf the web, or chat with people. But there is more to it than we think, actually the possibilities are endless. I have heard of hackers before. When I hear “hacker” what comes to mind is a person who breaks in computers to steal, plant, or destroy information. Never a good intention in what they do. Of course that’s how it started. The famous or should I say notorious “Captain Zap” , the man who holds the title of the worlds best hack ever, gave us a piece of his mind in this film. He hacked AT&T for no apparent reason. No benefit to him other than qualification from his peers. Same as the other hackers that came on the show, they did confirm that hackers mostly do it for the rush and recognition from the community. It was all about “planting their flag” in a site they have hacked. A waste of time and effort in my opinion, and I'm sure it also dawned on Captain Zap that if your good at something, you should get paid to do it. So that’s what he did.

Trivia: I did a little research on my own and saw on wired.com that Captain Zap was able to hack into AT&T by playing a certain frequency on the telephone. I don’t know how or why that worked back then or if it will work on today’s cell phones.

I didn’t know that there were two kinds of “hackers”. The common bad guys called the “black hats” or “crackers” who are out to create turmoil and wreak havoc in cyberspace and the good guys known as the ”white hats” or “angels”. These “white hats” are there to protect us from these cyber-menaces. A lot of them were originally hackers that saw the light and came over to the right side of the law. They even shun the hackers from the community and some of them became part of NYPD’s cyber crimes unit. Some of them joined internet security agencies. And some of them became freelancers or tiger teams. These tiger teams are hired by companies to find ways to hack into their system. They are tasked to find that hole so they can find a way to protect it. These people regularly have their seminars held where they get together to share information and be educated on the latest developments in hacking. These good guys have a hell of a job. They have to learn all the holes to be effectively protecting their system and all a hacker needs to do is find just one to get in and do his damage.

Overall, although hackers generally start out as mischief makers, it is good to know that some of them turn to doing good after seeing the brighter side of things. Whether their reasons may be monetary or just good old inherent goodness of man, I am happy to know that there still exists the capability for bad guys to change into good. With the reformed black hats out there, the information and experience they possess is a huge asset in the war against cybercrimes.