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What does being "hacked" really mean?


wilcal
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Prompted by all the noise swirling around

Gov. Schwarzenegger's computer(s) being hacked into

in your mind what does that mean and what is

your expectation of privacy on your computer(s)?

 

If your webpage is located at

 

/home/yourstuff/public_html/index.html

 

and goes on down through lets say

 

/home/yourstuff/public_html/index.html/morepages/somemore/more.html

 

and in the same tree there is say

 

/home/yourstuff/public_html/specialpages/hidden/index.html

 

and in the primary tree there are no links into or out of

the primary tree to the "hidden" directories if someone figures

out how to navigate through that is that hacking?

 

Even though your front door has a lock on it everyone

knows that two quick jiggles clockwise will open your

(locked?) door is that hacking?

 

Mandrake 9.2 when it was released Apache installed

with the proxy server defaulted open. I had no idea

it was that way until there was lots of traffic through

my server using it as a proxy. Just because it was

set up that way does it make it ok for someone to

casually get into it and use it or copy what's in there?

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If someone breaks into a machine illegally, it is called "cracking", not "hacking". ;) Everything he does after he cracked the machine is also cracking, thus illegal, even if he only moves a file from /home/arnie/movies to /home/arnie/documents and doesn't do anything else.

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If you run a public webserver and host a file on there that you don't want people to see, you can't cry foul when someone downloads it. Even if there are no links to it, you're still offering it on a public server. Nothing's been "broken into".

 

In Arnie's case, however, this particular file was apparently in a "password-protected area" so they're claiming unauthorised access. Maybe the password was stupidly weak, maybe someone told someone else the password, or maybe someone used some kind of cracking technique to beat the security. It'll probably never come out what really happened.

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here's a conversation I had with one of my system admins yesterday over msn:

 

me: have you made the password obscure

him: yes obscure

me: how obscure

him: obscure

me: could it be easily guessed?

him: its obscure

me: are you sure?

him: yes .. its obscure

me: so could I try guessing it :) ??

him: ITS OBSCURE !!!!

me: is the password actually the word "obscure" ?

him: yes .. obscure

me: **** I need a coffee after that !!!

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My understanding is, any un-authorised entry to another persons machine is a violation of that persons privacy.

 

even if you visit a friends house, and snoop at your friends files if he slips to the bathroom for ten minutes!

 

but any attempt to gain un-authorised access to another computer across the internet is (as far as i am aware) illegal.

 

if someone does gain un-authorised access ( ie: cracking passwords, decrypting encrypted files, stealing or copying files planting trojans / virus's or just moving or deleting files), then that is called cracking and is of course an even more serious offence.

 

by cracking the defences of the target machine, be it firewall, passwords etc, the term cracker is appropriate.

 

 

hackers, are the good guys and gals that sit up through the night burning the midnight oil, hacking code to improve it, or writing code for program's, they hack large code blocks and look for small mistakes and correct them, they hack it to pieces and study it improve it, and then re-assemble it, without hackers there would be no linux, no open source programs etc etc hackers are the god guy's !!!! :party0046::party0046::party0046:

 

and i hate it when everywhere i go i hear "hackers are the crooks, bad, criminals" they are not !!!! :pissedoff:

 

its the crackers we don't like they are the bad guy's !! :wall:

 

its about time this was explained a lot more to the "un-educated" in this matter, its not the fault of the average person who has never took an interest in programming, but, i had to write an email a couple of years ago to my ISP !! about a statement on their website stating that very mistake! (stating hackers were bad guy's)

 

i was informed by reply email that "well it is now a generally held term that "hackers", means a person of "dubious" and or "malicious intent" !!! this is an isp for gawd sake! :weird:

man it makes me sick! :puke:

 

and no i am not a hacker, or a cracker! lol

i wouldn't know a "peek" from a "poke" and what is a "malloch"? (i remember peek and poke from the old sinclaire spectrum days) and "malloch" i have seen recently whilst going through the packages info during an install :huh:

 

sorry about the rant :unsure:

regards

reb

Edited by reb2
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This is a pretty wide subject, discounting for now the malapropriation of the word "hacker" which as tyme points out is pretty much fixed in peoples minds.

 

Legal definitions are not really very helpful.

 

If you put up a webserver then you expect people to visit it. Its not like walking into someones house uninvited.

Its like having a sign on your house and leaving the door open saying "free visitor centre, free infomation" in a way.

 

The next level is say I go to www.mysite.com/my_public_space and I then type www.myspace.com/my_private_space is that gaining false entry?

 

IMHO you can't legislate against stupidity.

 

What if www.myspace.com/my_private_space asks for username and password and I type anonymous/anonymous?

 

I dunno, its like someone visiting my free information home and using the bathroom without permission?

 

If you don't want people visiting and seeing your PC's contents then don't put it on the internet IMHO ... or take that sign down that say's free entrance.

 

Deliberate and malicious damage is something else completely. This is like someone comes into my show home and vandalises it

Moving files about??? I dunno, its like someone comes in and moves my furniture about???

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here's a conversation I had with one of my system admins yesterday over msn:

 

me: have you made the password obscure

him: yes obscure

me: how obscure

him: obscure

me: could it be easily guessed?

him: its obscure

me: are you sure?

him: yes .. its obscure

me: so could I try guessing it :) ??

him: ITS OBSCURE !!!!

me: is the password actually the word "obscure" ?

him: yes .. obscure

me: **** I need a coffee after that !!!

 

Nah, I think his password is "terminator" :P

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