What is a hacker? Stories of famous hackers

Hackers are broadly classified into two kinds: black hat hackers and white hat hackers.

A black hat hacker is an expert in computer systems, networks, and programming who analyzes systems like computers, smartphones, tablets, and networks, finds security weaknesses called “security holes,” and then, with malicious intent, gains unauthorized access to systems to damage them or to view, copy, or alter the data inside. Most black hat hackers pursue financial gain or try to send a message through these illegal activities, and some even hack simply to show off their skills or for fun.

The term white hat hacker is used as the opposite of black hat hacker. If black hat hackers belong to the dark side, white hat hackers belong to the bright side. They have the same abilities as black hat hackers, but instead of abusing them with bad intent, they are IT professionals who find “security holes” that could be exploited by malicious people like black hat hackers, fix those issues, and strengthen system security.

To put it in everyday terms, a black hat hacker is like a thief who circles around our houses thinking about how to sneak in and steal our things or money, while a white hat hacker is like a home-security company employee who installs security devices in our houses and apartments to keep thieves out and patrols the property.

The word “hacker” originated in the 1960s in a club at MIT in the United States called the Tech Model Railroad Club. The students in this club built model tracks and model trains, devised track control systems to keep the trains from colliding with each other, and wrote programs so the trains could run automatically without human intervention. They called themselves hackers. The meaning they used for “hacker” referred to people who like to analyze the essence of something, find the principles inside, and share the knowledge they acquire. The motto of these hackers — “Information wants to be free” — became the foundational philosophy of today’s open source projects, where programs are developed and source code is shared with the world. Famous open source projects include Linux, the MySQL database, the Apache web server, and the Firefox web browser, all of which you probably know.

A news article online once read: “A notorious hacker group known as MoneyTaker breached a Russian bank’s network and stole approximately $1 million.” These days the word “hacker” is often used in a negative sense — different from its original good meaning — to refer to people who illegally break into others’ computers to wreck systems or steal important data. But many experts argue that the title “hacker” should be used only for IT professionals who discover new technologies and concepts and broadly share them with everyone — that is, white hat hackers — and that black hat hackers, who do illegal things that harm others, should be distinguished as “crackers” rather than hackers.

Let’s now look at some famous hackers.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak #

In 1960, a 7-year-old boy named “Joe Engressia” happened to discover, while whistling, that his whistling could affect telephone signals. This principle later became the basis of “phreaking” — hacking telephone systems to make free calls. In 1972, Steve Jobs and his close friend and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak learned the principles of phone hacking from “Draper,” a famous phone hacker, studied AT&T’s long-distance phone system (a major telecom company at the time, comparable to Korea’s SK), and made and sold a product called the “Blue Box” that allowed users to make long-distance calls for free. The two were teenagers at the time, and this was reportedly Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak’s first business. Draper, the man who taught them phone hacking, even worked briefly at Apple later. Steve Jobs is said to have remarked, “The Blue Box showed us how powerful an idea can be — and if we hadn’t built the Blue Box back then, there would be no Apple today.”

The Blue Box gave users a chance to make free long-distance calls, but it was an illegal product that caused massive losses to telecom companies. Many criminals used Blue Boxes, and there’s a story about how the police were quite troubled because they couldn’t trace the calls. Fortunately, the two stopped selling Blue Boxes before being caught by the FBI. The actual Blue Box the two made is reportedly on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. What do you think? Were they white hat hackers or black hat hackers?

Kevin Mitnick #

Kevin Mitnick, an American hacker known by the nickname “Condor,” is famous for repeatedly breaking into the networks of the Pentagon (the U.S. Department of Defense) and the NSA (National Security Agency). Many companies, including Nokia, Motorola, and Yahoo, were reportedly hacked by Kevin Mitnick. In 1995, Kevin Mitnick was arrested for breaking into the systems of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), known for its tight security, and was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 4 years of probation. He was placed in solitary confinement, reportedly because the judge presiding over his trial believed that Condor could launch a nuclear missile with a single phone call. Before being arrested, he had been on the U.S. “Most Wanted” list for over three years.

In his autobiography, he later denied most of the hacking crimes attributed to him. After serving his 5-year prison sentence and being released in 2000, he was only allowed to use a regular landline phone for three years until 2003, with all communication devices like computers and cell phones forbidden. After being released in 2000, he started working as a security consultant and shortly after founded a security consulting company called Mitnick Security. He now serves as the CEO of that company, working as a white hat hacker who consults on the security systems of Fortune 500 companies and the FBI. The company’s slogan is reportedly “The world’s most famous hacker is on your side.”

Anonymous #

Anonymous is an international hacktivist group widely known for various cyber attacks on government agencies, corporations, and groups it deems socially objectionable. Hacktivist is a portmanteau of hacker and activist. They began their activities in 2003 by posting on the message board of a site called 4chan.com, and are also famous for wearing the “Guy Fawkes mask” worn by the protagonist in the film “V for Vendetta.” They mainly advocated for internet freedom, social justice, and unrestricted government transparency. Many people around the world have sympathized with their cause and even joined the group. Anonymous criticized the Church of Scientology, the KKK, and the terrorist group ISIS, and launched cyber attacks against them. They even broke into the systems of the Chinese government, the Vatican, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the FBI, and the CIA, exfiltrating classified documents these organizations were hiding and exposing them to the public. The contents of the documents they released are said to have caused major social repercussions.

In 2011, under an operation called “Darknet,” they declared war on illegally operated child pornography sites. They subsequently published the addresses and user information of more than 40 child pornography sites, leading to police investigations and the shutdown of more than 40 such sites. At the time, more than 1,500 site operators and users were reportedly investigated by the police.

Are they good people, like Robin Hood? Or are they simply bad people who break the law? I’ll leave the judgment to you.

Tim Berners-Lee #

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, developed the HTTP protocol that web browsers use to transmit data over the internet. He then created the URL — what we commonly call a web address — and HTML, the foundation code of web applications. He released all of these technologies without patents so that everyone in the world could use them freely. Putting the world’s interest before his own is still praised today, and in recognition of his enormous contribution to the dazzling growth of the internet, he was selected as one of the “100 Most Important People of the 20th Century.” It can be said that we owe our use of web applications like Naver, Google, YouTube, and Facebook to him.

Linus Torvalds #

When you talk about white hat hackers, you can’t leave out Linus Torvalds. A Finnish-born software developer, he released the kernel of the Linux operating system as open source in 1991, when he was 21. At the time, most servers used Unix-based operating systems like IBM’s AIX or Sun Microsystems’ Solaris, and these two operating systems could only run on extremely expensive IBM Power servers and Sun Microsystems Sparc servers. Most companies had no choice but to grudgingly pay the high cost and use these vendors’ servers. Then Linus Torvalds released the Linux operating system kernel that ran on cheap x86 systems. At the time, most UNIX server vendors, including IBM and Sun, scoffed and asked how a server system could possibly run on x86 systems designed for PCs. But it didn’t take long for users to realize that x86 systems running Linux had no problem operating servers, and the server market began turning to x86 systems running Linux. IBM and Sun belatedly jumped into the x86 market, but companies like HP and Dell, which had started making and selling x86 servers earlier, had already taken over most of the server market. It was a classic case of closing the barn door after the horses had bolted.

The Linux kernel he developed powers Red Hat Linux, which holds 34% market share — second only to Microsoft’s Windows Server — among server operating systems. It is also used in Android phones and Chrome OS. Beyond Linux, he also developed git, the foundation of the famous software version control system GitHub, and donated it to the open source foundation. He maintains that new technologies and ideas should be shared as open source so that better ideas from many people can produce better technology, and that open source is the only good way to make software succeed.

So how was it? Does the picture of a hacker I described match the image of a hacker you had before? With computer system security becoming more important every day, the position of security experts like white hat hackers keeps rising, and the security consulting business is also growing. But remember that the line between a white hat hacker and a black hat hacker is paper-thin — if a white hat hacker abuses their abilities for personal gain, they can transform into a frightening black hat hacker in an instant.