The Good and Bad of Hacking

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People tend to associate hacking as a bad thing to do. But, what does hacking actually means? Is it hacking is all about illegal acts and crimes? The definition of hacking depends on who you ask. As there will be people giving you positive definition while some of the people will give you negative definition on hacking. However, Bruce Sterling, author of The Hacker Crackdown, gives a positive view and explains the term hack as it “can signify the freewheeling intellectual exploration of the highest and deepest potential of computer systems. It is true. Hacking has its bad site as well its good side.

References: Donn B. Parker, 1998, Fighting Computer Crime, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., United State of America.

The Good of Hacking:

Some of the individuals and organizations conduct security audits and research, and then publish their findings. These findings help the users who are not familiar with the security to understand more and protect their security system. Besides, it helps to protect the online society from security risks and being exploited. In short, hacking is considered as good when it is used to find security holes and then help to fix the problems or develop security tools and techniques to fight against the security risks.

The Bad of Hacking:

Hacking becomes harmful when the hackers break into others’ computer systems to steal information such as financial information like bank account passwords or other corporate confidential information in order to gain…. Hence, it becomes an Internet crime where the hacker will be sentenced to a few years in prison under the Internet laws which we are going to discuss in the following post.

References: The Benefits of Hacking: A Different Perspective for
the Security Conscious [Online], Retrieved on 9th March 2010, URL: http://www.trdtechnical.com/eportfolio/Final_Project_Tina.pdf

In short, hacking has its good and bad sides. It is depends on how people use it and the intention of doing it. Anyways, there are ways to prevent you from becoming a victim of the hackers. The video below shows a easy step to stop hackers and key loggers.



Video taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmazjLt0zJE&feature=related

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Poll Results-Internet Laws

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Nowadays we are so dependent on the internet that we do almost everything via the internet. However because of that there are irresponsible people who are taking advantage of these by creating scams scamming through users account. These victims will fall to their trap and lose everything they have. Therefore is there a legal internet law that protects us from being a victim? Do we have a right to ask for justice? Last week’s poll question we ask our readers to vote asking whether they are aware of the existence of internet law that can protect then form being scammed. Below are the results.



Half of them said no, they are not aware about any law that got to do with scamming. Where else 30% of the readers answered, not really where they have heard about it but not sure whether it really exist. The rest of the 22% of the readers answered yes that they are aware of these internet laws.
Stay tune for our next week’s post where we are going to talk about laws that can protect you and bureaus that you can go to and lodge a report and earn back your rights.

-Tenesha-

Phishing? Fishing?

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Phishing? Do you mean ‘fishing’? Undeniable, both of the terms have the same pronunciation but meanings. Most of the people do not know what phishing is and some might heard about phishing but do not know how it works. Hence, the objective of this post is to tell more and let the readers learn more about phishing. Generally, phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. (Reference: Webopedia, Definition of Phishing [Online], Retrieved on 3rd March 2010, URL: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/phishing.html) Why is it called phishing? The term phishing is given as Internet scammers are using e-mail lures or as a bait to ‘fish’ for passwords, financial and personal data from the ‘sea’ of the Internet users.

How does phishing works?

Typically, it is considered as phishing when an email from a legitimate organization is directed to the user and gives a link to request the user to visit a website where they are asked to update their personal information such as passwords, bank account numbers, social security and credit card details. However, the website is a just a bogus website that is set up only to steal the users’ information.

Ways to protect yourself from being phished

1. Don’t give out information the company should have
Companies will never simply ask for sensitive information through Internet which they already have such as usernames, credit card numbers and passwords but phishers will. So, do not simply fill in forms that ask for sensitive information.

2. Keep Your Email and Instant Message Addresses Private
To keep yourself safe from the phishers, you have to first prevent them from landing in your email inbox. Make yourself different email addresses for your trusted friends, and family, one for financial institution and one for general use. Many of the email providers will allow users to redirect emails from each of these different addresses to one account to minimize the inconvenience of checking each account.

3. If you are in doubt:

i) Immediately Report Suspected Phishing Contacts
If you suspect that the email which you receive is a phishing scam, report the case immediately by forwarding the email to reportphishing@antiphsihing.org or spam@uce.gov. Besides, almost every bank or credit card lender has their own website where allows customers to report suspicious emails and instant messages.

ii) Call the company directly
You can also call the company’s customer service phone number straight away to confirm if the email is from the company itself.

(Reference: cnet.reviews official website, How to avoid phishing scams [Online], Retrieved on 3rd Macrch 2010 URL: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3000_7-6459186-1.html)

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