A “hacker,” in the original meaning of the word, is a person who loves to study the details of programmable systems, studies how to improve their capabilities, programs something with enthusiasm, and simply loves to program. Also, a “hacker” is a person who is an expert in some field (for example, describing a person as a “Unix hacker” suggests that the person is an expert in using this system, but a person can also be an “astronomy hacker” , which indicates that he is an expert in this field). A “hacker” can also be a person who enjoys intellectual challenges in creatively overcoming or bypassing existing limitations.

Recently, the word “hacker” has been used to define a person who uses his or others’ knowledge in the field of computer and other high technologies to commit criminal activities, such as, for example, illegal penetration into closed networks. There are also less general types of “hackers”: carders (hacking and illegal use of information on other people’s credit cards), crackers (hacking the protection of software products protected by copyright), script kiddies (use ready-made exploits and vulnerabilities to commit hacks), network pirates (engaged in the unauthorized distribution of software products protected by copyright and other related rights), etc.

“Hackers” who use their skills and knowledge for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of society are also called “White Caps”. They are often also called “Ethical Hackers”. These "hackers", who do not break laws, are often hired by companies to research and test the security of their systems. Other “White Hats” act without the permission of companies, bypassing, but without violating laws and the integrity of systems, and also invent new interesting things.

“Hackers” who use their skills and knowledge for personal gain, breaking the law and other illegal activities are called “Black Hats.”

"White Caps"

This part of the article examines several of the most famous White Caps and their inventions and the technologies they created.

He is also called “Woz” and is also known as Steve from Apple. Wozniak and Jobs founded Apple Computer. Woz got his start in hacking by creating blue boxes, which allow users to bypass switching mechanisms in telephone lines, allowing them to make long-distance calls for free. Jobs and Woz sold these blue boxes to fellow students and even used it themselves to call the Pope, pretending to be Henry Kissinger.

Wozniak dropped out of college and invented the computer that made him famous. Jobs had the idea of ​​selling these computers as a complete device. They thought about this idea and brought it to life in Jobs' garage. Wozniak and Jobs sold the first 100 Apple Is to a local seller for $666.66 each.

For now, Woz is concentrating on philanthropy and no longer works full-time for Apple. Wozniak has adopted the Los Gatos School District, providing teachers and students with hands-on training and the latest technology.

Berners-Lee is respected for having invented the World Wide Web (WWW). Berners-Lee has received many awards, including the Millennium Technology Prize.

Berners-Lee was first caught "hacking" when he cracked access codes with a friend while studying at Oxford. He was then banned from accessing university computers.

Berners-Lee realized that hypertext could be connected to the Internet. Berners-Lee recalls how he did it: “All I had to do was take the idea of ​​hypertext, combine it with the ideas of TCP and DNS, and... Voila! - World Wide Web.

After inventing the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The W3C describes itself as "an international consortium where member organizations, consortium staff, and outsiders work together to create Web standards." The Berners-Lee World Wide Web idea, like the W3C standards, is distributed free of charge without patents or royalties.

Linus is the founding father of Linux, a popular operating system based on Unix. He calls himself an engineer, and says his goal is simple: "I just want to have fun building the best operating system in the world."

Torvalds' introduction to computers began with the Comodore VIC-20, an 8-bit home computer. Later, he switched to Sinclair QL. Wikipedia reports that he made significant modifications to his Sinclair, especially the operating system, and more specifically, Torvalds' modifications included "assembly language, a text editor, and several games."

Torvalds created the Linux kernel in 1991, using the Minix operating system as inspiration. He started with the 80386 task switcher and a terminal window. He then called on other programmers to contribute. Currently, about 2% of the Linux kernel code is written by Torvalds himself. The success of this public invitation to code changes represents one of the most famous examples of free software.

Currently, Torvalds serves as the leader of the Linux fraternity and coordinates all the changes that volunteer programmers make to the kernel code. He had an asteroid named in his honor, received honorary doctorates from the University of Stockholm and the University of Helsinki, and was mentioned in Time magazine's 60 Years of Heroes.

Stallman's fame stems from the GNU Project, which he founded to develop a free operating system, and for this he is considered the father of free software.

His “serious bio” reads: “Paid software leaves people helpless and hesitant, preventing them from sharing or changing it. A free operating system is the foundation for people to be able to use computers freely."

Stallman, who prefers to be called rms, got his start in hacking at MIT. He worked as a staff hacker on the Emacs project and others. He was critical of limited access to the laboratory. When a password protection system was installed, Stallman hacked it, reset passwords and sent users letters canceling the system.

Stallman's crusade for free software began because of a printer. At the MIT lab, he and other “hackers” were allowed to change the code of the printers so that they would produce clear error messages. However, a new printer arrived and they were not allowed to change anything. He was far from the laboratory, and the lack of communications was inconvenient. It was at this point that he became “convinced that software should be free.”

Inspired by this, he began working on GNU. Stallman wrote an essay on "The GNU Project" in which he chose to work on the operating system because it was the foundation, "the core software for using a computer." At that time, the GNU/Linux version of the operating system used the Linux kernel started by Torvalds. The GNU operating system is distributed under a copyleft license, which uses copyright to allow users to use, modify, copy, and distribute the software.

Stallman's life continues to revolve around promoting the cause of free software. He works against movements like Digital Rights Media (or as he likes to call it, Digital Restrictions Management), through organizations like the Free Software Foundation and the League of Programming Freedom. He has received widespread recognition for his work, as well as awards, fellowships, and four honorary doctorates.

Shimomura achieved fame in an unfortunate way: he was hacked by Kevin Mitnick. Shocked by the attack, he made it his life's mission to help the FBI catch him.

Shimomura's work in catching Kevin Mitnick deserves praise, but he himself is not blameless. Bruce Sterling recalls: "He pulls out an AT&T cell phone, unboxes it, takes it apart, and starts listening to the phone calls coming through Capitol Hill while the FBI stands behind him and listens to him."

Shimomura had Mitnick hack it to find him. Soon after discovering the hack, he assembled a team and continued working to capture Mitnick. Using Mitnick's cell phone, they tracked him to Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The article "SDSC Computer Experts Help FBI Catch Computer Terrorist" talks about how Shimomura was able to pinpoint Mitnick's location. Working with a telephone company technician, Shimomura "used a frequency-locating antenna connected to a laptop to narrow the search to an apartment complex." Mitnik was soon arrested. Following this, Shimomura, together with journalist John Markoff, wrote a book about the incident, which was later filmed.

"Black Caps"

The people described below belong to the type of “hackers” that we are accustomed to. You may have seen them arrested for cyber crimes when they were just out of puberty. Some of them committed crimes for profit, others purely for fun.

Mitnik is probably already synonymous with the word "hacker". The US Department of Justice still calls him "the most wanted computer criminal in all of US history." His actions were commemorated in films such as Takedown and Freedom Downtime.

Mitnik began his journey by hacking the Los Angeles system for issuing cards for travel on buses, thanks to which he was able to ride them for free. Then, like Apple's Steve Wozniak, Mitnick tried phone phreaking. Mitnick was first convicted of breaking into the DEC computer network and stealing software.

Mitnick later engaged in “hacking activities” on both sides of the continent for two and a half years. He said he hacked computers, infiltrated telephone networks, stole corporate secrets and penetrated the nation's attack prevention system. His decline came when he hacked into the home computer of computer expert and "hacker" Tsutomu Shimomura.

Mitnik now represents a useful member of society. After being in solitary confinement for 5 years and 8 months, he is now a computer security author, consultant, and lecturer on computer security.

Lamo caused serious damage to large organizations by breaking into the networks of Microsoft and the NY Times. Lamo used Internet connections everywhere: in coffee shops, Kinko's and libraries to improve his skills. Thanks to this, he earned himself the nickname - the Homeless Hacker. Lamo often found security bugs and cracked them. He also often informed companies about errors.

Lamo's list of victories includes such companies as: Yahoo!, Citigroup, Bank of America and Cingular. Of course, the White Caps did the same thing, but they did it legally, and companies hired them to do these things, and Lamo acted in violation of the laws.

Lamo's intrusion into the NY Times network brought him to the attention of cybercrime opponents. For this, the court ordered him to pay $65,000 in compensation. In addition, he was sentenced to 6 months of house arrest and 2 years of probation. The probationary period expired in January 2007. Now Lamo is a renowned lecturer and journalist.

At age 16, Jonathan became widely known for being the first minor to be sent to prison for "hacking." Later, he said he was having fun, looking around and enjoying the challenge.

James attacked high-level organizations, including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is part of the US Department of Defense. Thanks to this hack, he gained access to usernames and passwords, and was also able to view highly sensitive emails.

Continuing the list of his “victories,” it should be noted that he managed to penetrate the NASA network and steal software worth more than $1.5 million. The Department of Justice said: “The software that James stole is responsible for the life support system of international space stations, including temperature and humidity control system in living compartments.” After discovering the hack, NASA had to shut down the system to test and bring it back into working order, which cost taxpayers $41,000. Today, James plans to open a computer security company.

Robert is the son of a former NSA scientist named Robert Morris. He is the creator of the Morris worm. This worm is the first computer worm to be spread over the Internet. For his actions, he was the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Infringement Act.

Morris created the worm while he was studying at Cornell, and said he created it to find out how big the Internet was at that time. And the worm spread across the network uncontrollably and at tremendous speed, shutting down many computers and causing them to malfunction. Experts claim that more than 6,000 computers were damaged. Morris was sentenced to 3 years probation, 400 hours of community service and ordered to pay $10,500.

Morris is now a tenured professor at MIT in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His field is computer network architecture.

Better known as Dark Dante. Poulsen gained public fame by hacking the telephone lines of the Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. This hack allowed him to win a Porsche and many other valuable prizes.

The FBI began searching for Poulsen after he hacked into their database and gained access to classified wiretapping information. Poulsen's specialty was in telephone lines, and he often hacked into station telephone lines. Poulsen also recovered old Yellow Pages phone numbers for a friend of his who owned a virtual escort agency. Poulsen looked like an impossible task, but was soon caught and sentenced to 5 years.

Since his release from prison, Poulsen has worked as a journalist and was promoted to editor-in-chief of Wired News. His most popular article describes the process of identifying 744 sexual predators from their MySpace profiles.

The more we rely on technology, the more potential power hackers have over us. It doesn't matter whether their goal is to help or cause harm - these guys have the ability to change the world as they see fit. They may remain elusive and always in the shadows, and many hackers prefer this life, but there are a few truly brilliant hackers whose names are known to the public.

1. Robert Tappan Morris

Even if you know almost nothing about computer viruses, you have probably heard about the so-called “worms”. The first person to launch such a virus into the network was Robert Tappan Morris.

Cornell University graduate student Morris created his own “worm” and released it onto the network on November 2, 1988, paralyzing the work of six thousand computers in the United States. Subsequently, he claimed that he simply wanted to see how much the Internet had grown, and what happened was the consequences of an experiment that got out of control. However, the worm turned out to be much more than just a test: it read /etc/passwd, trying to guess passwords for accounts. Morris was eventually fined and sentenced to three years probation.

Morris later became a professor at Harvard University and the author of a huge number of developments in the field of software. Today he is a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not a bad career for a hacker.

2. Kevin Mitnick

It all started when Kevin Mitnick suddenly wanted to use public transport for free.

Mitnick hacked the Los Angeles bus system using a forged travel document. Later, at the age of 12, he became a telephone scammer - at first amusing himself by redirecting a home phone signal to a pay phone and listening to home phone owners being asked to put down a dime before speaking. Then I just started calling for free wherever I wanted. A few years later, Mitnik was already wanted throughout the country for hacking the Digital Equipment Corporation network and stealing their programs. This may have been his first notable hack, but later the guy also broke into the networks of telephone giants Nokia and Motorola.

The FBI caught him in 1995 after hacking into leading American computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura. Mitnick was sentenced to five years in prison, and when he was released from prison, he became involved in the protection of computer systems and founded the company Defensive Thinking Inc., specializing in computer security. He has also written several books about hackers.

3. Adrian Lamo

Yes, companies sometimes hire hackers to test weaknesses in their systems, but no one ever hired Adrian Lamo.

In 2002 and 2003, Lamo hacked the systems of several large companies just for fun, and then informed the companies about errors in their security systems. Targets targeted by the hacker included Microsoft, Yahoo and the New York Times, where he added his contact information to a database of experts.

Known as the “homeless hacker,” Lamo most often worked by connecting to the Internet in Internet cafes and public libraries. Many believe that he was driven by a thirst for fame. Lamo's intrusion into the NY Times network in 2003 brought him to the attention of anti-cybercrime activists, and he was caught and sentenced to six months of house arrest and two years of probation. Lamo now works as a well-known lecturer and journalist, and as an independent security consultant, but avoids any paid office work.

4. Gary McKinnon (aka Solo)

London-based hacker Gary McKinnon of Scottish origin acted not so much for pleasure as he pursued political goals.

In 2002, McKinnon hacked into the computers of the US Department of Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force and NASA. He subsequently stated that he was looking for evidence of concealment of information about UFOs, withholding information about alternative energy sources and other technologies that are potentially useful to society.

I'm not kidding. McKinnon said he has reason to believe that the US government is hiding alien technology that could solve the global energy crisis. However, the self-taught hacker admits he may have "accidentally" deleted a whole bunch of other files and possibly damaged some hard drives while trying to cover his tracks. However, he still insists that nothing special happened.

The US government, in turn, claims that McKinnon's attack cost $800,000, and also questions whether the hacker was actually looking for information about UFOs. The British lawyers who took Gary under protection insist that their client, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome, deserves special treatment due to his unstable mental health.

5. Raphael Gray (aka Curador)

Raphael Gray called himself a righteous man and insisted he was only trying to help e-commerce sites when he hacked into their databases to steal the credit card numbers and personal information of 26,000 American, British and Canadian customers in 2000.

The 18-year-old Welsh teenager then said he was simply trying to raise awareness of security vulnerabilities. True, it is not entirely clear why he, in this case, posted the stolen card numbers in the public domain on the Internet, but that is another question.

In 2001, Gray was sentenced to three years of forced psychiatric treatment.

6. John Draper

Without exaggeration, Draper can be called the grandfather of hackers. Back in the early 1970s, he became considered the “king” of telephone hooligans - that is, he made free calls. At that time, the Internet was not yet widespread and few people had personal computers, so Draper worked on phones.

A hacker discovered that a toy whistle from a box of cornflakes made a sound similar to an electrical signal to access the telephone network, and came up with a way to make free calls: dial an international number and blow the whistle. The whistle signal coincided with the telephone network signal and informed the system that Draper had hung up. Thus, the line was considered free, and all further actions of the subscriber were not recorded.

After several experiments, John, together with his friends Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs (familiar names, right?) created a device called the Blue Box, which allows you to simulate the sounds of the telephone network and make free calls. Draper later wrote the world's first text editor for the IBM PC, "EasyWriter". He currently runs his own computer security company.

7. Kevin Poulsen (aka Dark Dante)

In the 1980s, just as phone phreaking was becoming very popular in certain circles, Poulsen played a witty prank on Los Angeles radio station KIIS by faking several phone calls that allowed him to win top prizes - a trip to Hawaii and a Porsche.

A little later, a hacker hacked the FBI database and gained access to classified information regarding wiretapping, after which the FBI began hunting for him. As a result, Poulsen was caught and sentenced to five years.

He currently holds the position of editor-in-chief of Wired News.

8. Dmitry Galushkevich

In 2007, Internet access suddenly disappeared throughout Estonia. This “small but very tech-savvy” country blamed the Russian government for everything. Just then, there were frequent riots in Estonia due to the dismantling of Soviet monuments, so it was quite logical to suspect Russia.

The hackers responsible for this cyber-terrorism gained access to all the country's computers and exploited them, overloading all the servers. ATMs did not work, web pages did not open, and government systems had to be shut down.

It took Estonian officials several weeks to find the culprits. It turned out that the commotion was caused by someone Dmitry Galushkevich, a 20-year-old ethnic Russian living in Estonia. It was never possible to find out whether he caused this commotion alone or with a group of like-minded people. Galushkevich himself was fined 17,500 crowns (about 45,000 rubles).

9. Jonathan James (aka c0mrade)

On the list of computer systems that must be incredibly secure to prevent any computer genius from breaking through, the US Department of Defense system undoubtedly takes pride of place. However, the American hacker Jonathan James hacked this system and entered their server. The guy was 15 years old at that time.

On June 29th and 30th, 1999, James attacked NASA. He was able to freely surf the entire network and steal several files, including the source code of the international orbital station. Of course, NASA launched a large-scale operation to catch the hacker, and James was soon caught. NASA estimated the damage at $1.7 million.

Due to the fact that James was not an adult, he was sentenced to only six months in prison and was also forced to take it upon himself to give up using computers.

Unfortunately, James is no longer alive. He died on May 18, 2008 under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death is suicide, but there are rumors that the intractable hacker was “removed” by government agencies.

In 2002, the Deceptive Duo (a group of two people - 20-year-old Benjamin Stark and 18-year-old Robert Little) carried out a number of high-profile hacks into government networks, including the US Navy, NASA, FAA and the Department of Defense.

Like many other hackers, Stark and Little claimed that they simply wanted to point out security vulnerabilities and thereby help their country. The two hackers left messages on these systems and posted the email addresses of officials and classified government websites on known resources in an attempt to attract the government's attention. And they were attracted.

In 2006, both hackers pleaded guilty. Stark received two years probation, Little received four months probation with three years probation, and both were ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages.

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Since the eighties of the last century, the profession of a computer hacker has been surrounded by an aura of romanticism, and numerous films in the cyberpunk style have made this occupation desirable for millions of teenagers. Therefore, it is not surprising that real hackers from the real adult world today become the same superstars as pop singers or film actors.

Who are these people and what do they really do? It is quite obvious that we can hardly judge many of them, if only because the plans of a hacker breaking into top-secret systems do not include public interviews and photographs for the press. On the contrary, his task is to remain unnoticed and undetected. Therefore, the arrest of the most dangerous representatives of this community becomes an event, and their personalities arouse no less interest than the adventures of fictional movie characters.

However, reality is infinitely far from fairy tales, and real computer hackers have little in common with images from movies. The stories of their lives also bear little resemblance to the plots of Hollywood films, and excellent proof of this is the achievements of the five most famous hackers in the world. And everyone has probably already guessed why they are not the best: simply because everyone knows them.

1. Kevin Mitnick

American Kevin Mitnick is probably the most famous hacker in the world, largely due to the penchant for eccentric behavior that the idle public expected from him. During his arrest in 1995, Mitnik categorically stated that all he had to do was whistle into a public pay phone to start a nuclear war.

In reality, of course, he could not do anything like that, because, even though he really hacked many protected networks, he did not use any ingenious programs and supernatural codes for this, but banal methods of social engineering - in other words, the human factor. Mitnik used not so much any technical skills as knowledge of psychology and manipulated people, forcing them to give up their passwords.

Mitnik began practicing hacking various systems from childhood. It is known that at the age of 12 he found a way to forge bus tickets, which allowed him to travel around the city for free. He then hijacked the voice communications system at a local McAuto's to talk trash to customers.

At the age of sixteen, Mitnick hacked into the network of the Digital Equipment Corporation and stole the software located there: this cost him a year in prison and three years under police supervision. It was during this time that he hacked into Pacific Bell's voicemail system and, after a warrant was issued for his arrest, went on the run.

In 1999, FBI agents who caught Mitnick claimed that he had false documents and mobile phones with “cloned” numbers. He was eventually accused of hacking several computer and telephone networks and was sentenced to 46 months in prison, plus 22 months for violating the terms of his probation; Moreover, a joke about a nuclear war cost him eight months in solitary confinement.

Kevin Mitnick was released from prison in 2003 and has since written several books about his hacking achievements. In 2000, the film Track Down was released, based on his biography, written by Tsutomu Shimomura and John Markoff, where Shimomura was a computer systems expert whose computer was hacked by Mitnik. Today Mitnick is 49 years old and runs his own computer security company.

2. Gary McKinnon

Scotsman Gary McKinnon is the most famous British hacker, whose extradition has been sought by the United States since the early 2000s, where he faces more than 70 years in prison. UK police first became interested in McKinnon in 2002, but thanks to public support and some other circumstances, he is still at large.

In the US, McKinnon is accused of hacking almost a hundred computers belonging to the Department of Defense and NASA in 2001. According to authorities, having gained access to the system, he deleted critical files and effectively paralyzed the US military network for an entire day. Moreover, McKinnon allegedly erased US military data from hacked computers after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and stole some critical information. According to the laws in force in Great Britain, he was only entitled to a six-month sentence for such offenses.

McKinnon himself claimed that he was looking in the computers of the US military for evidence of concealing information from the public about UFOs and other potentially useful technologies. In addition, he stated that he gained access to completely unprotected machines and left numerous records of all the vulnerabilities discovered on those same computers.

A federal court in the US state of Virginia in November 2002 formally charged MacKinnon with seven counts of computer crime, and if the UK had extradited him to the US, the hacker could well have spent his entire life in prison. After the Extradition Act of 2003 came into force, it seemed that the hacker's fate was sealed, but that was not the case. The only thing that has changed is that he was required to report to the police station every day and not leave the house at night.

The defense insisted on medical examination of McKinnon, and he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism) and clinical depression, which can provoke suicide. On this basis, McKinnon appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which first suspended the extradition, but then refused to block it. In 2009, the Supreme Court granted permission for extradition, but the public outcry of the case led to the fact that it never took place. Many famous personalities spoke out in support of the hacker - from musicians Sting and Peter Gabriel to London Mayor Boris Johnson and actor Stephen Fry.

In October 2012, Home Secretary Theresa May announced that MacKinnon's extradition would be blocked on the grounds that if extradited, the risk to the defendant's life was so great (he could commit suicide) that such a decision would be contrary to human rights. Subsequently, it was decided to abandon criminal prosecution of the hacker in the UK: formally, due to difficulties with evidence located in the United States. Now McKinnon is completely free.

3. Jonathan James

American Jonathan James is the first juvenile hacker convicted in the United States of cybercrimes. According to the prosecution, at the age of 15 in 1999, he hacked into the computer system of his own school, the network of the telecommunications company Bell South, and then penetrated the server of the US Department of Defense. Here he intercepted more than three thousand emails from government employees, hacked into a NASA server and stole software designed to control life support systems on the International Space Station. Pretty cool, especially for a fifteen year old!

In 2000, James was arrested, but due to his young age, he was found guilty of two counts in juvenile court and thereby avoided actual prison time. Instead, he spent six months under house arrest and sent written apologies to the Pentagon and NASA. If James had been two years older, he would have faced at least ten years in prison.

Meanwhile, a few years later, Jonathan James began to be suspected of another computer crime: in 2007, the credit card information of millions of customers of the TJX retail chain was stolen, and the Secret Service searched James' home, trying to find evidence linking him to this crime.

Despite the fact that charges were never brought, James was confident that he would go to prison, and (according to the official version) he committed suicide. In the note he left, he stated that he did not believe in the justice system and saw suicide as the only way to maintain control of the situation and avoid punishment for a crime he did not commit. In interviews James gave prior to the theft of TJX customer data, he stated his intention to open his own computer security firm. Instead, at the age of 24, he committed suicide.

4. Kevin Poulsen

American Kevin Poulsen is another former hacker who, like Mitnik, changed his occupation to a more secure one. Back in the eighties, Poulsen specialized in hacking telephone lines and easily manipulated the numbers and channels of different operators. Poulsen first became known under the pseudonym Dark Dante in 1993 after hacking into the telephone control system of Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. As a result of skillful line blocking, he became the winner of several competitions and, as the 102nd caller, “won” a Porsche 944 S2.

Poulsen came to the attention of the FBI after hacking into secret databases containing information on wiretapping. His face appeared in one of the television documentaries Unsolved Mysteries, dedicated to unsolved crimes, but immediately after that, inexplicably, all the NBC telephone lines went out of order, so that no one could get through to identify Poulsen.

Nevertheless, the hunt announced by the FBI bore fruit: one of the supermarket employees recognized Poulsen and blocked him in the store aisle. Kevin was accused of hacking telephone networks and money laundering and was sentenced to five years in prison, after which he was prohibited from touching computers for three years.

After his release from prison in 1998, Poulsen turned to journalism and today serves as senior editor of the online version of the famous computer technology magazine Wired.

5. Sven Olaf Kamphius

Dutch-born Sven Olaf Kamphuis, owner of the Pirate Bay hosting provider CyberBunker and a prominent figure in the German Pirate Party, was arrested by Spanish police in April 2013 after a series of powerful cyberattacks that some say threatened the entire Internet. The fact is that the already mentioned company CyberBunker and the company CB3ROB, also owned by Kamphius, were hosting not only torrent trackers, but also botnets, spammers and other suspicious enterprises.

The massive DDoS attack on Spamhaus Project servers came after the computer security firm blacklisted CyberBunker and CB3ROB. In response, Kamphuis announced the creation of the STOPhaus group, which, according to him, included hackers not only from the USA, Canada and Western Europe, but also from Russia, Ukraine and China. According to the prosecution, by multiplying requests through DNS resolvers of different providers, the STOPhaus group managed to flood the Spamhaus Project servers with requests at a speed of more than 300 Gbps, which significantly slowed down the entire Internet.

After his arrest, Kamphuis stated that he had nothing to do with this attack and that he only publicly represented the STOPhaus group, but did not participate in its activities. According to him, the damage from the attack on the Spamhaus Project has been greatly exaggerated. He calls himself an Internet activist and a fighter against censorship and all those who try to control the Internet.

The investigation continues, but the person who almost “put down” the Internet is, one way or another, fully worthy of being on our list.

In the real life of computer hackers there is not as much romance and glamor as it might seem after watching Hollywood science fiction films. As a rule, it all comes down to living underground, secret not only from the police, but also from friends and relatives, and spending many years in prison. Some people are very lucky and subsequently manage to use their talents in legitimate business. And some are much less lucky.

The British newspaper The Telegraph, November 27, 2009, published on its website a list of the 10 most famous hackers, where, according to the publication, Kevin Mitnick is in first place.

Kevin Mitnick is probably the only hacker who is widely known even among people who are far from computers. The elusive computer genius, the thunderstorm of computer networks - newspaper publications, the hero of which Mitnik became countless times, did not skimp on epithets.

For millions, his name was associated with the image of a sinister, pervasive computer hacker, capable of unleashing the full power of technology on people. On the contrary, he always aroused admiration among teenagers. Throughout the 80s. Kevin penetrated the computer systems of almost all major companies.

There was not a single defense that he was unable to break. But, easily coping with others, the legendary hacker could not cope with himself in time. Which ultimately led to a sad end. In 1995 he was arrested. Upon his release in 2000, he began consulting in the field of computer security.

2. Kevin Poulsen- [born 1965]

Better known as Dark Dante. Poulsen gained public fame by hacking the telephone lines of the Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. This hack allowed him to win a Porsche and many other valuable prizes.

The FBI began searching for Poulsen after he hacked into their database and gained access to classified wiretapping information. Poulsen's specialty was in telephone lines, and he often hacked into station telephone lines.

Poulsen also recovered old Yellow Pages phone numbers for a friend who owned a virtual escort agency. Poulsen looked like an impossible task, but was soon caught and sentenced to 5 years.

Since his release from prison, Poulsen has worked as a journalist and was promoted to editor-in-chief of Wired News. His most popular article describes the process of identifying 744 sexual predators from their MySpace profiles.

3. Adrian Lamo- [born 1981]

Lamo caused serious damage to large organizations by breaking into the networks of Microsoft and the NY Times. Lamo used Internet connections everywhere: in coffee shops, Kinko's and libraries to improve his skills. Thanks to this, he earned himself the nickname - the Homeless Hacker. Lamo often found security bugs and cracked them. He also often informed companies about errors.

Lamo's list of victories includes companies such as Yahoo, Citigroup, Bank of America and Cingular. Of course, the White Caps did the same thing, but they did it legally, and companies hired them to do these things, and Lamo acted in violation of the laws.

Lamo's intrusion into the NY Times network brought him to the attention of cybercrime opponents. For this, the court ordered him to pay $65,000 in compensation. In addition, he was sentenced to 6 months of house arrest and 2 years of probation. The probationary period expired in January 2007. Now Lamo is a renowned lecturer and journalist.

Stephen Wozniak is an American computer developer and businessman, co-founder of Apple. Considered one of the fathers of the personal computer revolution. His inventions contributed significantly to the personal computer revolution in the 1970s.

Wozniak founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) with Steven Jobs in 1976. In the mid-1970s, he created the Apple I and Apple II computers. The Apple II became incredibly popular and eventually became the best-selling personal computer in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Stephen had several aliases, such as: "The Woz", "Wizard of Woz" and "iWoz". "WoZ" (short for "Wheels of Zeus") is also the name of the company that Stephen founded. He also created the initial prototype of the classic Atari game Breakout in 4 days.

As a young man, Stephen Wozniak, along with his good friend Steve Jobs, perfected Draper's technique and designed the "Blue Box" - a device capable of reproducing signals at the frequencies necessary to "fool" the telephone system and make free calls.

5. Lloyd Blankenship- [born 1965]

Lloyd Blankenship, an American hacker known as The Mentor, was a member of the most famous and prestigious hacker groups of the 80s - Legion of Doom and Extasyy Elite.

After being arrested by FBI agents, on January 8, 1986, he published the famous “Hacker Manifesto,” in which he vividly and eloquently outlined the core values ​​of the hacker culture, namely: indifference to skin color, nationality and religion, the superiority of knowledge and non-standard way of thinking, unlimited freedom of information, information for research, learning out of curiosity.

6. Michael Calce- [born 1985]

In February 2000, a Montreal teenager was 15 years old. Michael Kals, under the pseudonym Mafiaboy, carried out a large-scale hacker attack on 11 popular sites, such as Yahoo!, Amazon, Dell and CNN.

Sentenced in September 2001 to eight months in a juvenile detention center and a suspended sentence of one year for criminal damage and illegal use of a computer, Michael Kals was barred from going to the media or selling his story to publishing houses.

A year ago, he decided to talk about it as part of an autobiography, written in collaboration with Montreal journalist Craig Silverman. He also appeared on CBC's The Hour.

He admits that he did wrong and hopes that those who read his book will be able to avoid similar mistakes. The hack cost the affected businesses $1.5 billion. Michael Kals talks in the book about his participation in the operations of the criminal hacker community during that period.

Robert Tappan Morris is an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is better known as the creator of the first network worm, which paralyzed six thousand computers in the United States on November 2, 1988.

Morris worm read /etc/passwd, trying to guess passwords for accounts. For this purpose, the user's name was used (and the same with the letters in reverse order), as well as a list of the 400 most popular words. This attack led to a large-scale infection of the entire ARPANET network, and it was after this that the developers came up with /etc/shadow, as well as pauses after entering an incorrect password.

On July 26, 1989, Morris became the first to be charged with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and was sentenced (1990) to three years of probation (the convict is released from punishment on the condition of good behavior; applies to juvenile offenders and first-time offenders ), to 400 hours of community service and fined $10,400. He appealed but lost.

8. The Masters Of Deception (MoD)

One of the most famous hacker groups is MOD. From 1991 to 1993, there was a high-profile trial in the United States regarding the illegal penetration of MOD hackers into the computers of telephone companies and credit institutions.

Southwestern Bell alone suffered losses of $370 thousand from this. All MOD hackers were under 22 years of age. This year, the same group penetrated the Pentagon information network and the NASA network.

According to the FBI, MOD today includes at least two Russian citizens. The hackers said that the information they stole was enough to take over control of some satellites.

The hacker group included:

- Mark Abene (Phiber Optik)
- Paul Stira ("Scorpion")
- Eli Ladopoulos ("Acid Phreak")
- HAC, John Lee ("Corrupt," a.k.a. "Netw1z")
- Julio Fernandez ("Outlaw").
- Supernigger (DPAK)
-Wing
- Nynex Phreak
- Billy_The_Kid
- Crazy Eddie
- The Plague
- ZOD
- Seeker
-Red Knight
- Lord Micro
-n00gie
- peaboy (aka MCI Sprinter)

9. David L. Smith- [born 1968]

The author of the Melissa virus, programmer David Smith, admitted in court on April 1, 1999 that he is the creator and distributor of the notorious Melissa virus, the epidemic of which broke out in March 1999.

Experts estimate that the virus caused more than $80 million in damage. Let us remember that upon receiving an infected letter, the virus sent itself to 50 addresses obtained from the user’s address book.

At the trial, Smith said that he did not think that the virus he created would cause so much trouble. However, the way he disguised the virus suggests that he made every effort to spread it as much as possible.

Let us recall that the virus was distributed in email letters to 50 addresses from the address book of the infected computer’s email program, and the body of the letter stated that this was an “important message” from a person known to the recipient.

Therefore, users opened an infected file sent from a “friend,” which they would never do if they received a message from an unknown sender.

The creator of several computer viruses that caused a number of global epidemics that caused millions of dollars in damage to the global economy. The most famous viruses are Sasser and NetSky, modified versions of which still circulate on the Internet and occupy places in the top positions of virus ratings.

As you know, at one time, Microsoft, which produces the Windows OS, the “holes” in which these viruses were exploited, offered a reward of 250 thousand dollars for information about the authors of Sasser and NetSky. Presumably, this helped the police find Yashan and detain him. During the investigation, without waiting for trial, Yashan was hired by the German company Securepoint, specializing in computer security...

The story of Kevin Mitnick, a programmer who committed more than 20 cybercrimes, but in none of them used stolen data for harm.

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Kevin Mitnick

How it all began

Kevin Mitnick was born in 1963 in a small town in southern California. When the boy was three years old, his parents divorced and his father left home. Mom worked as a waitress and often worked late to provide for herself and her son. Mitnik himself says in his autobiography that he was his own nanny and spent almost all his time at home alone.

When he was 12 years old, the only entertainment Mitnick found for himself was traveling by bus around Los Angeles. However, there was not always enough money even for a ticket, so he could afford rare trips over short distances. This continued until Mitnik became interested in the principle of operation of the access system on the bus.

For himself, he noted a special stamp that marked the time and direction on the ticket. He carefully asked the driver where he could buy one, supposedly for his school project. The trusting driver almost took the teenager himself to a store that sold equipment for public transport.

An unsuspecting mother gave Kevin $15 to complete a school assignment, and soon he became the owner of a special composter. All that was left to do was get the forms for the tickets. The teenager also knew where to find them. Drivers threw half-empty forms at the end of the shift into trash cans at the final stops.

Already with the forms and stamp, Mitnik could go anywhere for free, he just had to remember the bus schedule. This was not a problem - the boy could boast of a phenomenal memory. Even now, the hacker admits, he remembers all the phones and passwords from his childhood.

Another passion that characterized Kevin Mitnick from a young age was his fascination with magic tricks. Whenever he saw a new trick, he would practice until he performed it perfectly. It was then, he says, that he began to enjoy fooling other people.

"Teachers" and "friends" of Mitnick

His first acquaintance with so-called social engineering took place at school, when he had a friend who introduced Mitnick to the basics of telephone hacking, the predecessor of computer hacking. First of all, he taught him how to call anywhere in the world for free, although, as Mitnik learned much later, this entertainment was actually quite expensive for one company from whose number the teenagers made calls.

He heard how and what his new friends with the phone companies were talking about, learned about calling procedures, and was soon able to make calls on his own. For the next fifteen years his life was determined.

He thought the funniest thing was changing the subscriber's service category. And the next time the person called from his home number, the phone company refused the call because it was showing a call from a phone that had no money.

But Mitnik didn’t just play around, he carefully studied the telephone industry - electronics, computers, employees, operating algorithm. Already at the age of 17, he could talk to any employee of telecommunications companies, understanding matters no worse than a professional.

His hacking career began in high school. At the time, the term "hacker" was used not to refer to a criminal, but to a dedicated programmer who spent a lot of time trying to find a faster, more efficient way to make programs work. Sometimes the goal was to reduce the number of steps to speed up the process and finish the job first.

In 1979, a group of hackers from Los Angeles entered the computer system of Digital Equipment Corporation (a company that produces computer equipment in the United States). The goal was to use the company's developments for its software. Mitnik dreamed of joining a group to gain experience.

New acquaintances gave the novice hacker the corporation’s remote access number. But they knew very well that without knowing the account and password, Mitnik would not be able to get into the system. Perhaps this was a test for a newbie. However, the programmer accepted the challenge. Introducing himself as one of the developers, the young hacker called the system manager.

He managed to convince the admin that he couldn’t get into his account and asked him for support over the phone. Within five minutes he was able to change the remote access password. Mitnik logged into the Digital Equipment Corporation system, but not as an ordinary user, but as a privileged user, one of its developers. The new friends were impressed.

But then something happened that the young hacker never expected. His “partners” used the login to download everything they needed. After which they called the security service and “surrendered” Mitnik. This was the programmer's first serious disappointment in those whom he was ready to call friends. In the future, he had to face betrayal more than once.

Mitnick's arrests and prison sentences

After high school, the young man continued his education at the Computer Training Center in Los Angeles. A few months later, the local administration noticed that Mitnik had found a weak spot in the security system of their computers and gained full access to their equipment.

Realizing that this was not just a student having fun, but perhaps a genius programmer, he was offered two options - to be expelled for hacking or to help improve the school's security system. After some time, Mitnik graduated with honors.

In 1981, a teenager and two of his friends broke into the offices of Pacific Bell Corporation's Cosmos (Computer System for Mainframe Operations) company. It was the database that most American telephone companies used to monitor calls. The teenagers received a list of security keys, door codes for several branches and instructions for using the Cosmos system. They stole information worth $170 thousand.

But this time Mitnik did not manage to get away with it - the manager of the telephone company discovered a data leak and contacted the police. The nerves of the girlfriend of one of the hackers’ friends could not stand it any longer, and she herself came to the local branch. Kevin Mitnick was sentenced in juvenile court to three months in prison and one year of probation. This was his first crime record, but not his last.

His next arrest occurred in 1983 - first, a hacker hacked into the computer of the University of Southern California, after which he entered the Pentagon system from it. This time he was sentenced to six months in juvenile prison. Even then, those who investigated his crimes spoke of Mitnik not as an ordinary hacker, noting his extraordinary abilities.

All these years, the programmer improved not only his knowledge in technology, but also in psychology, honing the skill of impersonating other people over the phone and extracting the information he needed. If Mitnick, according to him, did not associate the bus ticket trick with fraud, then by receiving secret information, the hacker understood that he was engaged in illegal activities.

However, for a long time he justified himself by saying that he was simply curious how far he could go and what other secret information he could obtain. During this time, Mitnik received the nickname “Condor” among hackers, which was the name of Robert Redford’s hero in the spy thriller directed by Sydney Pollack “Three Days of the Condor.” In the film, the character hid from the CIA using a telephone network.

After two prison terms, Mitnik seemed to come to his senses and in 1987 lived an ordinary life with his girlfriend. However, his passion for deception at some point forced him to carry out illegal transactions with credit cards and telephone numbers, which again led the police to his apartment. Mitnick was accused of stealing MicroCorp Systems software from a small California manufacturing company. That same year he was sentenced to three years probation.

With such a biography, getting a good job was problematic, but Mitnik tried and sent his resume to Security Pacific Bank, where he was quite expectedly rejected. In retaliation, the hacker falsified the bank's statements, which showed a $400 million loss, and began distributing this information throughout the network. The bank's security department managed to stop the falsification in time.

Unable to find a worthy use for his talent legally, Mitnick teamed up with his friend Lenny DeCicco. Together they attacked one computer company in order to copy a new operating system. The hacks were carried out from the computers of the company where DeCicco worked as a technician. The company quickly discovered the attacks and reported it, only this time not to the police, but to the FBI.

Mitnik, suspecting that someone was following their trail and fearing arrest, tried to frame his companion, DeCicco. Having learned this, the latter simply confessed everything to his supervisor and FBI employees. In 1988, Mitnick was arrested again.

The damage from the theft was estimated at millions of dollars, and Mitnik was charged with computer fraud and possession of access codes. This was already the fifth arrest of the hacker, and this time he attracted public attention, primarily due to his unusual defense tactics.

The programmer's lawyers asked for one year in prison and six months in a rehabilitation clinic for treatment for computer addiction. This was new for that time, but the court did see a connection between Mitnick's obsession with hacking computer systems and a psychological state similar to a drug.

After a prison sentence and work with psychiatrists, the hacker was prohibited from approaching not only computers, but also the telephone, although at that time it was impossible to access the Internet from the telephone. Mitnick took a low-paying position as a programmer at a small mail-order company in Las Vegas. But wherever the hacker worked, employers soon learned about his “track record.”

At the time, the FBI raided the home and workplace of one of the members of a telephone hacking group that Mitnick had been a part of years earlier. An arrest warrant was issued for the programmer for violating the terms of his release in 1989. But he did not wait for another prison term and escaped, after which he was put on the federal wanted list.

How Mitnick became the most famous hacker in the world

In 1991, Kevin Mitnick became famous thanks to New York Times reporter John Markoff, who specialized in articles about business and technology. That same year, the journalist received an award from the Software Publishers Association. Mitnik later claimed that Markof invited him to jointly write a book about him, but the programmer refused - in response, the journalist made him “the most famous hacker in the world,” and readers willingly believed him.

According to Mitnick, it all started with a series of articles in the New York Times that were full of “false accusations and slander.” But they not only later made Markof's book Takedown a bestseller, but also gave the authorities a reason to make Mitnik the most important criminal in the computer business.

For several years nothing was heard about the hacker, only in 1994 the FBI began investigating cases in which Mitnik’s handwriting was clearly visible. First, Motorola said that someone had stolen programs that allowed them to monitor cellular communications. In addition, McCaw Cellular Communications reported the theft of serial numbers of new mobile phones.

All this, according to the FBI, was the work of Kevin Mitnick. However, chance helped catch the programmer. That same year, a hacker hacked the home computer of one of America's leading computer security experts, Tsutomu Shimomura.

The Japanese did the same thing as the American, only they were on opposite sides of the law. Shimomura considered it a matter of honor to catch Mitnick, especially since he not only hacked his computer, but also left an offensive audio message. To maintain his professional reputation, Shimomura helped the FBI, and eventually in 1995 they managed to catch Mitnick, who, while hiding, changed more than one identity card.

Kevin Mitnick was charged with more than 20 charges - software theft, unauthorized access using telephone lines, hacking into USC computers, file theft, email interception, and more. Among the affected companies were such big names as Apple, Nokia, Motorola and others.

Mitnick pleaded not guilty, saying that he never used the information for personal purposes. At the trial, he told how, for example, he hacked into George Lucas's computer and read the script for the new episode of Star Wars, but did not say a word to anyone. The director himself learned about the attack on his computer only after Mitnik’s confession.

Nevertheless, the programmer was sentenced to five years in prison without bail. Thousands of hackers supported Mitnick, insisting on his innocence. The main argument was that the programmer made all his attacks out of pure curiosity. In support, they organized the Free Kevin movement, which they promoted using the most famous sites.

During all this time, Mitnik actually had many accusations of thefts, hacks, attacks, but no one was ever able to prove that the hacker used this data for harm - he did not erase information, did not destroy the system, and there is not a single case of selling stolen secrets .

Despite the defense, Mitnick was in federal prison until 2000. After his release, the programmer was forbidden for three years to touch any electronic device that could be connected to the Internet - from a computer to a TV.

It is known that even when Mitnick was offered to play the role of a CIA officer in the series “Alias,” in the episode where, according to the script, he was supposed to work on a computer, a cardboard mockup of an electronic device was made especially for this purpose.

Despite the limitations, the programmer did not waste time - he founded his own company, Defensive Thinking, which began consulting on security issues, and sat down to write a book in which he told his story. However, according to a court decision, he could not receive economic benefits from it until 2010.

The book “The Art of Deception” describes methods of manipulation and persuasion, using which you can impersonate another person and obtain access codes to systems. Mitnik himself explained that his book has educational goals. “Certain techniques and tricks have been used against some companies, but all the stories in the book are fictitious,” he said.

Soon Mitnick spoke about the idea for his next book, in which he was going to describe real hacker attacks. He asked his “colleagues” for help in writing, in return promising anonymity, autographed copies of his books, and offered a reward of half a million dollars for the loudest story. In 2005, his new book “The Art of Deception” was published.

Each of Mitnick's books became a bestseller. In 2011, a new one was released - “Ghost on the Net: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker.” Six years later, another book was released - “The Art of Being Invisible.”

These are not the only books published about the famous programmer. Back in 1996, when Mitnick was in prison, New York Times journalist John Markoff, together with Japanese specialist Tsutomu Shimomura, published a book about him, “Hacking.”

Four years later, it was filmed, the film has the same name, and its author Markof - $1 million. In addition, Mitnik several times became a character in computer games.

The programmer never officially returned to hacking. Many note that during the years that he spent in prison, the development of technology has advanced so far that a hacker, even if he wanted to, could not return to his craft. However, Mitnick himself speaks of a conscious refusal to hack computers.

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