Unethical Defacements
Unethical Defacements
ghost | 12846 Reads | I was browsing through inurl:ftp nonsense a few months ago after reading an ftp defacement article, and was looking through the google results when I came across a churches website that had be defaced, and didn't think it was really a big deal, and passed it off in my mind as a harmless prank. But then it hit me. The constant pointless defacements are becoming a real problem for the hacking community and are getting the ethical hackers locked up, because they have to inflate their egos. There are to many people that call themselves hackers because they can deface an ftp site (not saying this is the only thing, or specifically targeting this, it just seems like a good example), or put javascript on someones forums, just to be annoying, or even think that they aren't harming anyone and that it is just a practical joke, or even so they can brag to their friends about how the are an 31337 hacker.
But take a look at what your doing. Sure, you think that your not harming anyone or causing any problems, but simply put for every action their is an opposite, but equal reaction. Your just giving hackers a bad name. Your causing ethical hackers to get arrested for your crimes. Your probably thinking thats just stupid they aren't getting in trouble for what I did, I didn't get caught so it's just a harmless prank, but people are getting hurt over your crimes. They are getting pinned up against the wall and treated like dogs because of so many of you arrogant fools, who think your badass. Eventually it will come back around to you and your going to get in trouble for everyone else's crimes as well as your own. To many people are being unethical in the way that they hack.
So just think about it, if EVERYONE in the hacker community would strive to make the internet better, and safer, and certain few would stop trying to tear down everything that has been built to share information, for more or less the common good of the world, maybe people we know would not being going to jail for your mistakes.
Just think about it.
ghost 17 years ago
Personally, I don't think the term hacker will ever have a positive stereotype. It did a long time ago, but that's all been forgotten. There will always be someone who is a rebel, or who goes against the crowd just to say there not doing what everybody else is. Then more people follow them and it happens all over with the negative stereotypes. I think changing the word is a good idea, but there aren't just hackers in North America or Great Britain, there are hackers all over the world who have accepted that term for ages. And to suddenly say: "OK, everybody listen up, we've decided to stop going by the name hacker and change to something else, any ideas?" I don't think that'll be accepted by the hacker culture. So, to sum it all up, I don't think the stereotype would change (even though it'd be nice if it did), someone will always ruin it for others, and it won't be accepted with the snap of your fingers.
ghost 17 years ago
Ender, you completely missed the point I was trying to make :P I was saying that hacker has the negative stereotype now, and if people aren't okay with that why not make a new word to define themselves?
Flaming_figures 17 years ago
We have. We are Splurges. lol. There are still ethical hackers alive and kicking, but most hacking groups you hear about… you only hear about because they did something big and bad and made front page news. The ones you don't hear about are doing good things… I can't mention any, because I haven't heard of them :) Besides, it may be ethical to one, unethical to another. It is what the hacker believes. Say he takes down a KKK site. Ethical to him and many, unethical to the KKK and others. If the hacker just goes to a random site and defaces it, that is unethical to all, and is truly bad. They already made a name or themselves… script kiddies.
ghost 17 years ago
Maybe I'm still missing your point but whatever, I agree with the idea to change it.
ghost 17 years ago
Naw im saying why change it? If you really wanna be known as someone that hacks servers then chickens out (whitehat) yer gonna needa make a new name, hacker's already reserved ;)
ghost 17 years ago
i think there are a few good points there but if a harmless prank led to the admin of the site realising he cudnt be lazy and had to fix the problem then its a good thing alo without hackers then security would be minimal and a knowledgable programer cud wreak havok. tho defacing and stuff is all uneithical according to most ppl i wud prefer a little java popup on a rubbish guestbook i made or something than someone absolutely wreaking the site.
ghost 17 years ago
loads of replies… I just thought I'd say it's YOU APOSTROPHY RE YOU ARE YOUR YOUR!!!! lol. And meh just a bit of fun.
ghost 17 years ago
kool, its called backups. And seriously, the sites that get defaced are usually made by people that hardly know html, some people have a life other than computer ;)
ghost 17 years ago
This seems like it should have been in a forum post, otherwise, it was the defacer's choice. Put yourself in his position. He might of even been doing other 12. He sees a site against his beliefs, so he defaces it. Not much to it.
ghost 17 years ago
Seeing as how yo've never written an exploit, defaced, or written a decent program its hard to take your opinion on this topic seriously. Defacers are morons. Agreed. "Unethical"? pfft. Grow up.
ghost 17 years ago
I'll agree with you on the part about these kinds of hackers giving all hackers a bad name.
ghost 17 years ago
Wtf, why don't you find a huge exploit on a huge website and then go to the press and say. Hey I found this exploit, but i won't use it as I'm not a hacker, I'm a "Splurger" (an ethical hacker). And try to convince all the unknowing people in their sofas that we are good and not bad.
But this will probably not be like that for long as the black sheep will always be the one the medias will be interrested about unless the white ones make themselves so big that the black ones are hidden in the shadows.
ghost 17 years ago
I would agree that the random defacement was unethical……..but it was a church website……