Hackers, Good And Evil

11 Pages 2666 Words

“Governments form the industrial world; I come from cyberspace, the new home of mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome here. You have no sovereignty where we gather. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders, your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement and context do not obey to us. They are all base on matter and there is no matter here.”

John Perry Barlow - Electronic Frontier Foundation
Cyberspace Declaration of Independence

Hackers, Good and Evil

A war is being fought in the Internet twenty-four hours a day. A team of defenders spread throughout the world, are ready to stop and neutralize every attack. It is the Global Thread Operation Center where all attacks are being monitored; any of which could be the signal for a stronger hit that could generate absolute chaos. The room looks like a set from a futuristic movie. Four huge screens in the front of the room display the process data that is taking place. Several rows of desks and panels fill the room. More than twenty people are moving around, answering and making phone calls, talking to each other, and examining computer screens. They are ready, and waiting. Suddenly, everyone’s attention is focused on a specific screen, where a problem has been detected. One of the major highways of Internet traffic has slowed down considerably due to an assumed hacker assault. What is scary about this attack is that it seems to be moving through the time zones towards the Americas, most likely the United States. So far, it has in some way affected every major network attached to one of the pipelines. If the attack effectively reaches the U.S., it could negatively affect hundreds of companies, businesses, the stock market and millions of people; this would cause a devastating strike on the infrastructure of the Internet itself. The head leader of the team makes...