Naval Postgraduate School
Fall 2007

CS3610: Information Crime, Law and Ethics

Oct 9, 2007

Hacking and Online Crime

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Hacking has a short but fascinating history. In this class we'll look at the change in the hacker profile over the last decade and examine the entrance of organized crime and other nefarious characters onto the hacking scene. We'll take a brief look at how criminal hacking started with phone phreaking and then moved onto the Internet when it came on-line.

There has always been a good versus evil element to hacking. On the good side are the white hats who try to convince society that they hack only to make the Internet a safer place by pointing out holes and security flaws. Then there are the black hats, who are the true criminals, hacking only for their own criminal purposes. We'll review the history of some well-know hackers both white hat and black hat and look at the effect these individuals have had on the on-line world as we know it today.

An entire security industry developed in order to protect companies and private citizens from hackers and it continues to thrive today. Will the threat from hackers ever be neutralized? We'll analyze some of the success and failures in this arena and look at what the future holds with “hackable” computers entering every facet of life. Hackers benefit from the speed of technology. As people race to grasp the latest technological innovation, security often lags behind as an after thought. It is the time in between where hackers make their mark.

After looking at the current status of computer hacking, we will discuss the laws that prohibit it and how the national limitations of law enforcement agencies continue to make hacking a crime that does pay.

Some additional topics we will cover are:

Mandatory Video

Please watch this video:

Mandatory Readings

In the readings we will focus on the Steve Jackson Games case and the case of the Morris Worm --- two major cases from the early 1990s that set the framework for the government's treatment of computer crime by individuals and the response of the civil liberties community.

Historical material:

The Steve Jackson Games Case: The Morris Worm: Hacking Today:

References and Optional Readings

Cases

Assignment: 1-page brief

Please write a 1-page brief using the IRAC method of either the Steve Jackson Games case or the Morris Internet Worm case.

For information about the IRAC method, please see the wikipedia entry and this explaination from Professor Bruce Zucker at California State University.

I have prepared a 1-page annotated brief about Gary Kremen"s sex.com appeal against NSI. You can find it here: [doc] [pdf].

Slides