Weekly New/Digital Media (66)

Teenage hackers motivated by morality not money, study findsPerson with laptop in data centre


Summary: "Young people attack computer networks to impress friends and challenge political system, crime research shows" 
Teenage hackers are motivated by idealism and impressing their mates rather than money, according to a study by the National Crime Agency. Children as young as 12 are being arressted in regards to computer based crimes. The average age seems to be 17 for these types of crimes. It is either to make political systems or Others were motivated by a desire to tackle technical problems and prove themselves to friends, the report found.

 Key facts/statistics:

  • Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Hoare said: “They don’t understand the implications on business, government websites and individuals.”
  • Young hackers could profit from their skills if they avoided cybercrime, he said. “A lot of the skill sets these people have are hugely marketable. The world has a lack of cybersecurity and there are lucrative careers to be had, but [they] are much harder to come by if you already have a criminal conviction.”
  • The report said: “Conquering the challenge, proving oneself to the group and intellectual satisfaction are more important motivations than financial gain.”
  • Jake Davis, a former member of the Anonymous hacking collective who was arrested aged 18 in 2011 for attacking government websites, said he had no desire to profit from his crimes but wanted to challenge secrecy.
  • He said: “It was not financially motivated at all, as the NCA report says, it was mostly politically motivated. I was motivated as a teenager by the idea that this internet was this utopian space that shouldn’t be controlled or filtered or segmented or chopped up into little blocks and distributed out, and that it should be open and free, and anyone in the world should be able to use it.”
  • There were more opportunities to get involved in “ethical hacking”, he suggested. “Companies and governments love hiring hackers. There are systems in place called bug bounties. You get to hack to prevent them being hacked. Companies will put out a message to say: ‘This is within scope, if you hack us responsibly, tell us about it, we will patch it up and then we will pay you.’
  • “The hackers will message the company saying: ‘I’ve found this bug in your system, here is what damage it can cause.’ If you take a company like Twitter they have paid over $800,000 [£625,000] to hackers over the last few years.”

My opinion:
It seems that NDM has meant the scope for potential crimes has increased. There are more and more ways to make political statements as well as 'easier' ways to commit crimes where the chance of getting caught is low. This therefore highlights how the platform online, the internet, is a separate space to reality that seems to be making it own laws and crimes now. The rise of hackers has just highlighted how many privacy, censorship and regulation issues the internet and media have.

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