The Great Deception - Russia Just Hacks Us - The Truth - We Invented Hacking!

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One thing you have to love about the media, they will always be so preoccupied with their agenda they will have no time for historical analysis, research, and cross checking facts.  So we remain focused on how those dastardly Russians hacked us in the 2017 elections when we hacked them almost two decades ago.

Wikileaks has once again shown why they are the most loved and hated web site on Earth. Yesterday they dumped another batch of secret documents into the media charade and it showed how the Master developer and user of hacking programs of our world is none other than our very own CIA.

Fancy that, we set the standard for not simply hacking everyone, but for embedding our little packages in abut every computer in the world so it could report back to us.  Now the futuristic technology has been extended to iPhones and Smart TVs.

Did it ever occur to the media that Russian hacking might just be in retaliation for what we have already done to everyone else?  Was it not Wikileaks that spilled the beans on the USA monitoring the phones and emails of foreign leaders, friend and foe alike a few years back?

Here are two current articles about what Wikileaks leaked this time, and a third article on why our hands are not clean on hacking, we wrote the book and our own people were among the victims.

Technology

WikiLeaks publishes massive trove of CIA spying files in 'Vault 7' release

 Andrew Griffin,The Independent 

WikiLeaks has published a huge trove of what appear to be CIA spying secrets.

The files are the most comprehensive release of US spying files ever made public, according to Julian Assange. In all, there are 8,761 documents that account for "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA", Mr Assange claimed in a release, and the trove is just the first of a series of "Vault 7" leaks.

Already, the files include far more pages than the Snowden files that exposed the vast hacking power of the NSA and other agencies.

In publishing the documents, WikiLeaks had ensured that the CIA had "lost control of its arsenal", he claimed. That included a range of software and exploits that if real could allow unparalleled control of computers around the world.

It includes software that could allow people to take control of the most popular consumer electronics products used today, claimed WikiLeaks.

"'Year Zero' introduces the scope and direction of the CIA's global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of "zero day" weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones," the organisation said in a release.

The public files don't include the cyber weapons themselves, according to a statement. The organisation will refrain from distributing "armed" software "until a consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA's program and how such 'weapons' should analyzed, disarmed and published", it said.

The files were made available by a source who intended for them to start a conversation about whether the CIA had gained too much power, according to the organisation.

"In a statement to WikiLeaks the source details policy questions that they say urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA's hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency," a release read. "The source wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyberweapons."

It also redacts the details of some of the names, locations and targets that are identified in the documents.

The organisation had teased the release in advance with strange messages about the release being "Year Zero", and references to "Vault 7". It had planned to release the files later on but that plan was thrown off when its press conference came under cyber attack, Mr Assange claimed.

Technology

WikiLeaks claims the CIA built special tools for hacking iPhones and other Apple products

 Kif Leswing,Business Insider

(AP) 
Documents published on Tuesday by WikiLeaks claim to be evidence that the "CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal." 

According to the WikiLeaks files, it appears that the CIA has teams specifically dedicated to breaking into Apple products, including iOS, the software that runs on iPhones and iPads, and even Apple's line of routers, AirPort. 

The WikiLeaks files suggest that the CIA may have access to undiscovered and unreported bugs, or exploits, in iOS, the iPhone operating system. 

"While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities," Apple said in a statement. 

Here's Apple's complete statement on the WikiLeaks files: 

"Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers’ privacy and security.  The technology built into today’s iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers, and we’re constantly working to keep it that way. Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80 percent of users running the latest version of our operating system. While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities.  We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security updates.”

There is also evidence in the 7,818 web pages and attached files that the CIA has tools to gain unauthorized access to Android devices, smart TVs, and other computers. 

'Nothing interesting or new' about the published exploits

(A screenshot of purported exploits the CIA was aware of and documented.WikiLeaks)

 
Will Strafach, a security professional with extensive experience with iOS exploits and CEO of Sudo Security Group, cast doubt about the "leaked iOS stuff from CIA" on Twitter, saying that there appeared to be "nothing interesting or new."

"So far, there is zero cause for concern," Strafach told Business Insider. "They definitely have vulnerability research (looks very similar to my own company's internal wiki), but nothing which should be if any concern to a user on the latest iOS."

Apple regularly fixes the kind of bugs and potential exploits that the CIA purportedly developed and bought. For maximum security, you should update to the latest version of iOS on your iPhone or iPad in Settings > General > Software Update. 

In a statement accompanying the document release, Wikileaks claimed that there was a group inside the CIA specifically dedicated to hacking iPhones and iPads. Wikileaks wrote: 

Despite iPhone's minority share (14.5%) of the global smart phone market in 2016, a specialized unit in the CIA's Mobile Development Branch produces malware to infest, control and exfiltrate data from iPhones and other Apple products running iOS, such as iPads. CIA's arsenal includes numerous local and remote "zero days" developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop. The disproportionate focus on iOS may be explained by the popularity of the iPhone among social, political, diplomatic and business elites.

The U.S. has a long history of hacking other democracies

By Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Ryan Beasley and Christian Crandall By Mariya Y. Omelicheva, Ryan Beasley and Christian Crandall

Monkey Cage

December 20, 2016

The former commander in chief of the Allied forces in Europe, Gen. Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower poses for a photographer at NATO Paris headquarters in 1951. (AFP/Getty Images)

Why do democratic governments so often engage in violent covert actions?

The United States is roiled by controversy over Russia’s broad covert operation to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election and Western democracy in general. But the U.S. government has interfered in other democracies’ decisions with violent clandestine operations that go back generations.

[A new poll shows an astonishing 52% of Republicans think Trump won the popular vote]

During the George W. Bush administration, the American public learned about post-9/11 covert actions that many found disturbing, including secret memos authorizing torture of terrorist suspects; a highly secretive program of “extraordinary renditions,” which involved the government-sponsored capture and transfer of detainees from U.S. jurisdiction to other states without due legal process for purposes of detention and interrogation; and “black sites,” or secret prisons operated by the CIA.

But as our research has found, those operations were a continuation of U.S. policy, not a break with it.
Here’s how we did our research — and what we found
We examined unclassified Central Intelligence Agency documents and historical academic research on U.S. interventions to identify 27 U.S. clandestine operations carried out between 1949 and 2000.

Most U.S. “secret wars” were against other democratic states.

[How Hannah Arendt’s classic work on totalitarianism illuminates today’s America]

Unclassified documents published by the U.S. national security archive at George Washington University show that the British government helped the United States overthrow Mohammad Mosaddegh, a democratically elected prime minister of Iran, and tried to block the release of information about its involvement in the coup.

But that’s just one example. In 1954, an anti-Communist “army” trained and armed by the CIA deposed democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala — leading to years of violent civil war and rightist rule. Fifty-seven years later, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, on behalf of the state, asked Guzman’s family for forgiveness.

And in 1981, President Ronald Reagan authorized the funding for the CIA-led “secret wars” against the democratically elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua. These are but a few examples of the U.S. covert operations abroad.

Kissinger: Trump has opportunity to make history in U.S. foreign relations

During an interview aired Dec. 18, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger said of foreign leaders' relationship to President-elect Donald Trump, "It is a shocking experience to them that he came into office, at the same time, an extraordinary opportunity." Kissinger says of foreign leaders of Trump, "It is a shocking experience to them that he came into office, at the same time, an extraordinary opportunity." (Reuters)

We also examined the nationality of detainees in the “war on terror” between 2001 and 2006, when the United States was casting the broadest net to find and detain prisoners. The individuals detained by the U.S. military on the orders of the U.S. administration were placed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba or transferred to Abu Ghraib in Iraq. There is a public record of their detention.

In parallel to the U.S. military operations, the CIA seized several people in foreign territories suspected of hostile actions against the United States. Held incommunicado and without due process of law, these individuals were placed in the CIA’s secret prisons or sent to states known for forced disappearances and torture.

We compiled the list of individuals covertly detained by the CIA from reports by international human rights groups and independent news organizations providing investigative reporting on the CIA renditions program. Our analysis further confirmed that the United States was substantially more likely to use clandestine coercion against citizens of democratic states.

Why do democratic governments engage in frequent violent covert actions?

Policymakers worry whether their actions will be perceived as legitimate. Legitimacy comes in part from keeping policies consistent with citizens’ interests and expectations.

For instance, since wars and violence are inimical to citizens’ interest in self-preservation and freedom, policymakers are predisposed to value peace. Democratic governments will launch open violence only if they think they can persuade citizens that those actions are legitimate.

While working covertly to bring down democracies, the United States also worked to engineer public support for overt use of force, if necessary. For instance, in 1954, the Eisenhower administration spread fearmongering propaganda about the “communist leanings” of the Guatemalan president. The U.S. news media subsequently misrepresented the coup as a successful restoration of democracy in Guatemala, carried out by local freedom fighters.

The news media did not report what it did not know: that the CIA had masterminded and funded the revolt. Similarly, the British government used the BBC’s Persian service to spread anti-Mosaddegh attitudes before the 1954 Iranian coup.

When democratic governments can’t get their citizens to support coercive policies abroad, they — at times — can and do resort to covert force.

Mariya Y. Omelicheva is associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Kansas.

Christian Crandall is professor in the department of psychology at the University of Kansas.

Ryan Beasley is senior lecturer in the school of international relations at St. Andrews University.
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NSA advisory sparks concern of secret advance ushering in cryptoapocalypse

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Risk Assessment / Security & Hacktivism

Once elliptic curve crypto was viewed as a savior. Now its future looks doomed.

by Dan Goodin - Oct 22, 2015 6:15pm EDT

In August, National Security Agency officials advised US agencies and businesses to prepare for a not-too-distant time when the cryptography protecting virtually all sensitive government and business communications is rendered obsolete by quantum computing. The advisory recommended backing away from plans to deploy elliptic curve cryptography, a form of public key cryptography that the NSA spent the previous 20 years promoting as more secure than the older RSA cryptosystem.

NSA preps quantum-resistant algorithms to head off crypto-apocalypse

Quantum computing threatens crypto as we know it. The NSA is taking notice.

Almost immediately, the dramatic about-face generated questions and anxiety. Why would the NSA abruptly abandon a series of ECC specifications it had championed for so long? Why were officials issuing the advice now when a working quantum computer was 10 to 50 years away, and why would they back away from ECC before recommending a suite of quantum-resistant alternatives? The fact that the NSA was continuing to endorse use of RSA, which is also vulnerable to quantum computing, led some observers to speculate there was a secret motivation that had nothing to do with quantum computing.

On Tuesday, researchers Neal Koblitz and Alfred J. Menezes published a paper titled A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma that compiles some of the competing theories behind the August advisory. The researchers stressed that that their paper isn't academic and at times relies on unsourced facts and opinions. And sure enough, some of the theories sound almost conspiratorial. Still, the paper does a good job of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the NSA's highly unexpected abandonment of ECC in a post quantum crypto (PQC) world.

"The PQC announcement suggests that NSA has no interest in this topic because it now views ECC as only a stopgap solution," the researchers wrote. "This caught many people by surprise, since it is widely believed that ECC will continue to be used extensively for at least another decade or two."
The researchers remain skeptical that quantum computing is the real reason for backing away from ECC. Documents leaked by former NSA subcontractor Edward Snowden have so far given no indication of any advances in the field that pose an imminent threat to any form of public key crypto. The budget for quantum-based research is modest by NSA standards, an indication that neither the US nor any other country is on the brink of a breakthrough, they said.

The theory that has generated the most attention among readers is that NSA researchers are now aware of breakthroughs that are unrelated to quantum computing that threaten ECC but not RSA. Matt Green, a Johns Hopkins University professor specializing in cryptography, notes the advance might involve classical cryptanalysis of what's known as the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP). To date, the mathematical problem is believed to be so hard to solve that properly implemented ECC can't be broken without requiring millions or even billions of years. But there's no proof this assumption is correct. If NSA researchers stumbled on a new way to tackle the problem efficiently, it would torpedo the entire suite of crypto schemes banks, government subcontractors, and others have been using at the strong urging of the federal government.

"If the NSA's mathematicians began to make even modest, but sustained advances in the state of the art for solving the ECDLP, it would put the entire field at risk," Green wrote in a blog post. "Beginning with the smallest of the standard curves, P-256, which would now provided less than the required 128-bit security."

P-256 refers to a curve set in a 256-bit field. Because of the exponential number of operations required to solve ECDLP provides the equivalent of 128 bits of security, the minimum threshold mandates for encrypting classified material. A little-noticed provision in the NSA's August communication, Green noted, was the announcement that P-256 was being retired.

Nobody can crack important algorithms yet, but the world needs to prepare for that to happen.

While not everyone agrees with the theories, the paper makes a compelling argument that NSA researchers are aware of new information they have yet to disclose that's causing them to lose confidence in cryptography they were among the first to champion in the late 1990s and have continued to support ever since. More recently, ECC has been embraced as the alternative to the frailer RSA cryptosystem. The NSA's announcement is causing some researchers to question that assumption. Hanging in the balance is the security of just countless industrialized governments, banks, and websites everywhere.

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Truth or Consequences - China Hackers Threaten USA Power Grid

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This week we were informed that Chinese hackers could disable the United States Power Grid and paralyze the American economy.   The following extract came from The Inquisitr Online.

 

The Inquisitr‎   November 20, 2014

NSA Director Says Chinese Cyber Hackers Can Shut Down U.S. Power Grid

NSA Director Michael Rogers says that Chinese cyber hackers can shut down the power grid in the United States and essentially end life as we know it in America. According to the federal official, China and “one or two” other countries are capable of launching cyberattacks that terminate the ability of the power grid to function and shut down other “critical systems” nationwide.

The real possibility of massive and devastating power grid cyberattacks has long been discussed by both national security experts and the five million prepper families in the United States, but has not officially been confirmed by a “top cyber official” in the federal government until now. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, not long after leaving office, that a cyberattack on the power grid was a matter of “when,” not “if.”

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing, NSA Director Michael Rogers said “adversaries” of the United States are currently engaging in “electronic reconnaissance” on a regular basis. Such activities are being conducted in order to ensure that China and other adversarial nations are “in a position to disrupt the industrial control systems” such as the power grid, which enable food and medication delivery and allow chemical facilities and water treatment plants to function.

The NSA director also said, “All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of when, not if, we are going to see something dramatic. [In cyberspace] You can literally do almost anything you want, and there is not a price to pay for it.”

What is wrong with this picture?  On May 21, 2001, nearly four months BEFORE the tragic 9-11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center at a News Conference at the National Press Center in Washington, D.C. a new company announced a cyber security system that could block any cyber attack on our power grid and any other critical digital operations in America.

Who was the first client of Invicta Networks,  the new company, the NSA.  So this week, 13 years later, NSA admits we have no defense for our power grid from a cyber attack.  Yet 13 years ago, they were testing a system that could protect our power grid.  What happened?

Special briefings were presented to the top cyber officials in the White House, Pentagon, and Intelligence agencies including the cyber czars like Richard A. Clarke for President Bush and President Obama.

In the time since 9-11 our government spent billions and billions of dollars on cyber security to protect the economy, banks, the power grid, classified government data bases and who knows what else.  Yet in the past year hackers have stolen over 500 million credit card, banking and phone records of our citizens.  Some protection.

The same ineffective computer security companies that dominated the Internet in 2001 dominate the Internet in 2014 except many have been acquired by giant defense contractors.  So the same companies that control the most powerful weapons systems in the world also dominate cyber security in the world.  Do you feel more secure as a result?  

Certainly the systems are not working if NSA says we are vulnerable.

Contrary to what NSA said, China is not the only threat.  There are Russian hackers, former Russian KGB and now Russian mob hackers, hackers from the Netherlands, the independent group Anonymous and of course employees and contractors for our very own intelligence agencies (remember Edward Snowden and NSA).

Congress should investigate why the White House national security advisors and USA intelligence agencies ignored solutions to our problems over the years and blocked companies like Invicta from protecting American assets.  Perhaps the true extent of our deception has not been discovered.

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Watch, weep, enjoy, whatever - cyber attacks in real time - the ultimate reality show!

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This Site Shows Who Is Hacking Whom Right Now — And The US Is Getting Hammered

By Jeremy Bender 

U.S.-based computer security firm Norse has released a real-time animated map that illustrates ongoing cyberattacks around the world. Without a doubt, the U.S. is getting constantly hammered by hackers.

In just 45 minutes, the U.S. was the victim of 5,840 cyberattacks.

[Click on this link for real time attacks]

Screenshot/map.ipviking.com

A view of the cyberattacks carried out against the U.S. within a 45-minute span.  Within that span of time, the U.S. suffered from 27 times more cyberattacks than Thailand, the second most targeted country. Thailand was the target of only 220 cyber attacks during these 45 minutes. 

The Norse map does not represent all hacking attempts in the world. Instead, according to Smithsonian Magazine, the map relies on a Norse honeypot network — a network purposefully designed to detect hacking — to provide a representative snapshot of global hacking attempts.

In actuality, there are orders of magnitude more hacking attempts on any given day than recorded by Norse. For instance, there are an estimated 20 million attacks per day against locations within Utah. There are 10 million daily hacking attempts against the Pentagon alone.

China is responsible for the vast majority of these attacks. Within the 45-minute span, China accounted for 2,513 attacks. The U.S. accounted for the second highest number of attacks, with 1,550 attacks originating within America. However, a number of American attacks targeted computers elsewhere in the United States.

It is likely that these intra-U.S. attacks are the result of "zombie computers"  — computers that have been compromised by a hacker and carry out attacks at the hacker's discretion.

Chinese cyber attacks are highly damaging to both the U.S. economy and national security. China is currently developing a new plane that is modeled after stolen plans for the U.S. F-35 fifth-generation plane.

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Cyber Space -Virtual Playground of the Gods

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For over 15 years I have been writing about the potential of the Internet to bring good or evil to our world.  No doubt there are countless functions the cyber space universe can supply for the good of mankind.

 

Scientific and medical research both benefit from it with the ability to share data and speed up the processing of information.  It has been instrumental in the evolution of capitalism by dramatically changing the way people do business and get information.

 

Book publishers have been decimated by the Internet impact on book sales with e-books now able to instantly deliver books to your home or office at far less cost than you going to the nearest book store and fighting the crowds.

 

 

In music new artists abound on the Internet free of the shackles of the music publishers, the control of the producers and with the elimination of bribes paid to radio stations to only put certain artists in their playlist who are under contract to powerful record labels.

 

Both the fields of book and music publishing are in serious trouble, but maybe they earned it by trying to spoon feed the public certain authors and artists while refusing to take any risk on new artists in need of help thus strangling the heart and soul of American music, it's essential creative energy and powerful will to take risks and push the envelope.

 

The digital revolution is also extending it's tentacles into the movie and television business and once again is serving as an instigator of long overdue change to yet another industry that was growing irrelevant with it's risk aversion and obsession of control of artists, scripts and productions.

 

Thanks to our virtual world on the Internet books, records and movies are now available to us from old and new artists, every day there are new productions that actually have meaningful stories, coherent lyrics and happy endings that can have a lot of impact on the quality of life and attitude of people.

 

 

Of course in their last gasps of life the old guard are dumping junk on the market still using their worn out formulas of success to avoid risk, in other words, a propensity to simply copy the last successful movie and flood the market with multiple sequels is failing them at last.  With the Internet people now have the power to make choices for themselves and find the independent artists and companies long shunned by mainstream producers.

 

Beyond that there are many educational and informational benefits from the Internet.

 

But there are also dark sides to the Internet that have opened the floodgates to the demons who prey on the weaknesses and perversions which afflict a great many of our people.

 

About ten years ago I discovered an international prostitution ring operating on a popular social site.  After documenting how it worked, I was able to contact some of the actual prostitutes and interview them.

 

They told how they were recruited throughout Europe and were sent to major European cities, usually for a period of a few months, where they would rendezvous with the clients.  They were very high end, meeting in the best hotels and given the most expensive clothes and chauffeured limousines.

 

Every few months they were rotated to another major city to avoid detection by local and international police.  But they owed a lot of money to their "sponsors" and in fact were nothing but high-end sex slaves.  So I turned my information over to the owner of the Internet social service.  What a dumb thing to do.

 

Terrified (I guess) that I was going to post a news release accusing them of moral bankruptcy or something, instead of a thanks I got threats to sue me, sue me until I was bankrupt since they had billions and I was just a lowly reporter.  Some good did result as the highly sophisticated prostitution ring vanished from the Internet, no doubt resurfacing in some other location but no longer part of a mainstream social site..

 

 

To this day the Internet is used for every illegal and immoral purpose possible from child molestation to prostitution, pirating to pimping.   Then there is the DarkNet, that sinister and mysterious no man's land in cyber space where good intentions are swallowed up by evil results.  You should learn more about the DarkNet.

 

Finally, there is the world of cyber security where honesty and disclosure long ago vanished from the scene.

 

The culmination of Dark Force power manifests in cyber security where virtually everyone lies, or is required to lie, by the governments, private contractors and individual hackers involved in raping your rights to privacy and freedom.

 

I got to see this world from the inside out and rest assured what goes on in this arena most likely exceeds your wildest imagination.  Without a doubt the entire world was pretty much hacked over a decade ago and ever since competing interests from big and small countries and companies alike have been building profiles on you.

 

 

Every time I hear President Obama condemn China for hacking US top secret files I think of how many years the US has been hacking everyone else's top secret files in the world.  No one is without guilt when it comes to stealing records from other sovereign nations.

 

The bizarre NSA scandal dominating world news right now is the inevitable result of a lust for power and obsession with stealing information by governments, and powerful corporations.

 

One by one it seems our revered institutions are falling because they got a little too greedy and decided they were above the law.  Just look at the rash of illegal activity revealed recently in the fields of housing, financial speculation, energy pricing, international banking ad infinitum.

 

We need to pay a lot more attention to the administration and management of the virtual world.  It certainly serves some mighty beneficial purposes but it also serves some rather sinister masters and the Internet, unfortunately, is totally oblivious to characteristics like knowing right from wrong, knowing the value of children or young girls being forced into sexual slavery and perversion.

 

It certainly does not have the capacity to tell the truth as it has no basis for truth or lies.  And it has no empathy or compassion for people for there is no emotional sensitivity in virtual space.  In terms of a mathematical algorithm it is free of bias, prejudice, and discrimination because it is also free of morality, ethics and oversight.

 

Be informed and beware.

 

 

The following was published by The Telegraph from the United Kingdom.

 

We present the ten most famous hackers

 

1. Kevin Mitnick

 

Probably the most famous hacker of his generation, Mitnick has been described by the US Department of Justice as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." The self-styled 'hacker poster boy' allegedly hacked into the computer systems of some of the world's top technology and telecommunications companies including Nokia, Fujitsu and Motorola. After a highly publicised pursuit by the FBI, Mitnick was arrested in 1995 and after confessing to several charges as part of a plea-bargain agreement, he served a five year prison sentence. He was released on parole in 2000 and today runs a computer security consultancy. He didn't refer to his hacking activities as 'hacking' and instead called them 'social engineering'.

 

2. Kevin Poulson

 

Poulson first gained notoriety by hacking into the phone lines of Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, ensuring he would be the 102nd caller and thus the winner of a competition the station was running in which the prize was a Porsche. Under the hacker alias Dark Dante, he also reactivated old Yellow Page escort telephone numbers for an acquaintance that then ran a virtual escort agency. The authorities began pursuing Poulson in earnest after he hacked into a federal investigation database. Poulson even appeared on the US television Unsolved Mysteries as a fugitive – although all the 1-800 phone lines for the program mysteriously crashed. Since his release from prison, Poulson has reinvented himself as a journalist.

 

3. Adrian Lamo

 

Adrian Lamo was named 'the homeless hacker' for his penchant for using coffee shops, libraries and internet cafés as his bases for hacking. Most of his illicit activities involved breaking into computer networks and then reporting on their vulnerabilities to the companies that owned them. Lamo's biggest claim to fame came when he broke into the intranet of the New York Times and added his name to their database of experts. He also used the paper's LexisNexis account to gain access to the confidential details of high-profile subjects. Lamo currently works as a journalist.

 

4. Stephen Wozniak

 

Famous for being the co-founder of Apple, Stephen "Woz" Wozniak began his 'white-hat' hacking career with 'phone phreaking' – slang for bypassing the phone system. While studying at the University of California he made devices for his friends called 'blue boxes' that allowed them to make free long distance phone calls. Wozniak allegedly used one such device to call the Pope. He later dropped out of university after he began work on an idea for a computer. He formed Apple Computer with his friend Steve Jobs and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

 

5. Loyd Blankenship

 

Also known as The Mentor, Blankenship was a member of a couple of hacker elite groups in the 1980s – notably the Legion Of Doom, who battled for supremacy online against the Masters Of Deception. However, his biggest claim to fame is that he is the author of the Hacker Manifesto (The Conscience of a Hacker), which he wrote after he was arrested in 1986. The Manifesto states that a hacker's only crime is curiosity and is looked at as not only a moral guide by hackers up to today, but also a cornerstone of hacker philosophy. It was reprinted in Phrack magazine and even made its way into the 1995 film Hackers, which starred Angelina Jolie.

 

6. Michael Calce

 

Calce gained notoriety when he was just 15 years old by hacking into some of the largest commercial websites in the world. On Valentine's Day in 2000, using the hacker alias MafiaBoy, Calce launched a series of denial-of-service attacks across 75 computers in 52 networks, which affected sites such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo. He was arrested after he was noticed boasting about his hack in online chat rooms. He was received a sentence of eight months of "open custody," one year of probation, restricted use of the internet, and a small fine.

 

7. Robert Tappan Morris

 

In November of 1988 a computer virus, which was later traced to Cornell University, infected around 6,000 major Unix machines, slowing them down to the point of being unusable and causing millions of dollars in damage. Whether this virus was the first of its type is debatable. What is public record, however, is that its creator, Robert Tappan Morris, became the first person to be convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Morris said his 'worm' virus wasn't intended to damage anything and was instead released to gauge the size of the internet. This assertion didn't help him, however, and he was sentenced to three years probation, 4000 hours of community service and a hefty fine. A computer disk containing the source code for the Morris Worm remains on display at the Boston Museum of Science to this day.

 

8. The Masters Of Deception

 

The Masters Of Deception (MoD) were a New York-based group of elite hackers who targeted US phone systems in the mid to late 80s. A splinter group from the Legion Of Doom (LoD), they became a target for the authorities after they broke into AT&T's computer system. The group was eventually brought to heel in 1992 with many of its members receiving jail or suspended sentences.

 

9. David L. Smith

 

Smith is the author of the notorious Melissa worm virus, which was the first successful email-aware virus distributed in the Usenet discussion group alt. sex. The virus original form was sent via email. Smith was arrested and later sentenced to jail for causing over $80 million worth of damage.

 

10. Sven Jaschan

 

Jaschan was found guilty of writing the Netsky and Sasser worms in 2004 while he was still a teenager. The viruses were found to be responsible for 70 per cent of all the malware seen spreading over the internet at the time. Jaschan received a suspended sentence and three years probation for his crimes. He was also hired by a security company.

 

 

CPT Editor's Note:  If the bad guys (China, etc.) do all the hacking why are all or most all of the world's top ten hackers from America?  And isn't it true that the best of all hackers are the ones who don't get caught?

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