Hackers Outside Hollywood - How Hacking Really Began?

Before Hollywood took the hacking phenomena under its wing, unless you were a clued-in techy, the world of hacking would be unfamiliar territory. In recent years, movies like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Matrix and The Italian Job have managed to glamourize the high-tech thrill of breaking into servers, cracking door codes and hijacking security networks.

But before television brought the hacker technology into our general knowing, hacking was still an occurring reality for some. So what is the history of hacking and where did today's sophisticated hacking begin?

Late 1950s – The MIT Start Off with a Bang

Hacking wasn’t always about computers. In fact, the first ‘hackers’ were roof and tunnel hackers, which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was instrumental in introducing. These were people who entered roof and utility tunnel spaces without authorization, in other words getting into a place they shouldn’t be in – which is where computer hacking got its name when people started using technology to get into data systems they shouldn’t have access to!

Roof and tunnel hacking was initially intended as practical jokes and saw the hanging of banners from tall places and the popular placing of a model car on the top of a university building. Unsecured entry points would be used to gain access and cause mischief as per the desire of the hacker.

Early 1970s – The Era of Phone Phreaking

The telephone network was the first technological victim of hacking know as Phone Phreaking. It was ingeniously discovered that whistling down a phone in a specific tone could in fact force a switchboard to allow calls. The exploitation of telecommunications systems using audio frequencies was further enhanced by the use of tone-generating devices to permit even free long-distance calls.

‘Phone Phreaks’ were committed to gaining unauthorized access to telephone systems, which quickly saw the evasion become a criminal offence.

• 6 Most Common Password Cracking Methods

Mid 1970s – A New Level of Virus Sophistication is Met

In 1975, several Motorola staff unearthed a way to crack the security system on the Xerox machine using a simple programming strategy. They reported the problems as a matter of urgency to Xerox but when no action was taken to resolve the loophole, Motorola staff mischievously installed programs named Robin Hood and Friar Tuck.

These programs were designed to cause mischief in the system such as printing insulting messages to each other or making huge old disk drives ‘walk’ across the floor, and the programs prevented the system operator from aborting them by protecting each other and persistently reappearing after rebooting of the system.

• Top 6 White Hat Hackers In The World
• Top 6 Black Hat Hackers In The World

2007 – The Return of Urban Exploration

The 1950s exploration of physical spaces returned with Parkour and free-running as a more creative mode of accessing abandoned and forbidden places. Parkour involves running, jumping, swinging and vaulting over obstacles in the hope of trespassing – all in the name of creativity and freedom, and all, technically, a form of ‘hacking’.

The Present Day – 'Information wants to be free'

Technology activists and the availability of free online schools has encouraged the illicit access of information. Online schools such as Udacity, Codecademy and Khan Academy have provided people with the tools required for coding and have led to an increase in the number of code-literate individuals. With a booming number of techies, breach of online security systems has also proportionally risen.

It seems that with the advancements in technology and the evolving of hacking with time, we can anticipate a nightmare future of computer hacking. Prevailing hackers are likely to turn their attention to governmental projects and entering mainstream security systems by clever impersonation. Computer coding has become child's play for many and it is anticipated for budding hackers to seek opportunities to enter the world of biohacking, where even the software of life and our DNA itself remains unsafe!

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What do you think will be next in the world of hacking?

About Guest Author
Gregg Townsend is passionate about everything from gadgets to web-design and likes to keep up to date with the latest news regarding hacking. Connect with him here on Twitter.

Top 6 White Hat Hackers In The World

Let’ begin with who is a white hacker? First of all, white hacker is good, conscientious and ethical hacker, who tries to save the balance of the universe by doing good works. White hats are very useful and it goes without saying they constantly compete with black hats. White hats hackers can be compared with cats, which catch mice, namely they look for defects of the systems. Besides, white hats are computer security guards, they test systems for the level of protection and moreover they improve their skills. Mainly, white hats don’t look for fame or money, they serve in society.

It is undeniable that sometimes black hat hackers became white hackers and prevent crimes, because they perfectly know what to do. So who are they main and most famous white hats of all times?

Before you move on further with this post you might like to read about Top 6 Black Hat Hackers.

• Top 6 Black Hat Hackers In The World

1. Stephen Wozniak

Stephen Wozniak, The Great Woz, as many hackers call him, moreover,  he is “the second half” of Steve Jobs and Apple empire, became as an icon and inspiration for many people, who never lost interest in computer technology. What did he actually do? It is well-known today that he made free long-distance calls possible exploring so-called blue boxes, at the time, when high technology has made its first baby steps.  Nevertheless, one should accept that Woz is an independent developer and worked for the good of people. Currently, Stephen Wozniak is preaching charity and provides new technologies. One can truly say that Stephen Wozniak made a difference in this world and he deserves to be called as a white hat hacker.

2. Tim Berners-Lee 

Tim Berners-Lee is well-known around the world as fonder of the web we use - World Wide Web. No wonder that this man invented his first computer using iron, as they say necessity is the mother of invention. Doubtless, his innovating had led him to becoming a president of the Open Data Institute in 2012.

3. Linus  Torvals 

Linus  Torvals created Linux operation system, which many of us use. At the beginning, this system was about to be called as Freax, using the combination of words “ freak” and “free”. Luckily, nowadays we know it as Linux.  As Linus himself once said that all he wanted to have fun doing something he really enjoys. This seems to confirm the idea that it is the great result of having fun!

4. Tsutomu Shimomura 

Tsutomu Shimomura is also a very good example of a white hat hacker. The bottom line is he tracked down another hacker – Kevin Mitnick, who actually was a black hat hacker. However, later on he has entered the ranks of white hats. Tsutomu Shimomura caught Mitnick with flying colors hacking Mitnick’s phone. Good job catching “black knight”. Currently Shimomura is CEO and CTO of Neofocal System.

5. Richard Matthew Stallman 

Richard Matthew Stallman is known also by his initials – RMS. His policy is to give users freedom of usage software as well as education, freedom of voice and choice. He has developed Free software foundation, GNU project, which allows use computer and its devices for free

What is more, RMS is a founder of copyright concept. Among the list if his merits are 14 doctorates and professorships.

6. Johanna Rutkowska.

When it goes about technology and computers, most of the time we mentioned men. Women weren’t pathfinders in this area, however, they have done enough to be mentioned among outstanding white hats. Thus, this smart lady could hide root kits in software and hardware and to make them invisible to a naked eye. One must admit the talent of he woman. To draw the conclusion, one can say that enumerated people have brought its own contribution in foundation and innovation of computer technologies. Until the world has such brainy “white knights”, its save.

Paul Smith, as a talented writer and well-known blogger, is wonderful worker of bestresumewritingservice. This brilliant writer is very good at computer technology, computer history and innovations. To find out more about Paul and his works, you can reach him at Google+

6 Most Common Password Cracking Methods And Their Countermeasures

There are number of methods out their used by hackers to hack your account or get your personal information. Today in this post i will share with you guys 6 Most commonly used method to crack password and their countermeasures. You must check out this article to be safe and to prevent your online accounts from hacking.

1. BruteForce Attack

Any password can be cracked using Brute-force attack. Brute-force attacks try every possible combinations of numbers, letters and special characters until the right password is match. Brute-force attacks can take very long time depending upon the complexity of the password. The cracking time is determined by the speed of computer and complexity of the password.

Countermeasure: Use long and complex passwords. Try to use combination of upper and lowercase letters along with numbers. Brute-force attack will take hundreds or even thousands of years to crack such complex and long passwords.

Example: Passwords like "iloveu" or "password" can be cracked easily whereas computer will take years to crack passwords like "aN34lL00"

2. Social Engineering

Social engineering is process of manipulating someone to trust you and get information from them. For example, if the hacker was trying to get the password of a co-workers or friends computer, he could call him pretending to be from the IT department and simply ask for his login details. Sometime hackers call the victim pretending to be from bank and ask for their credit cards details. Social Engineering can be used to get someone password, to get bank credentials or any personal information.

Countermeasure: If someone tries to get your personal or bank details ask them few questions. Make sure the person calling you is legit. Never ever give your credit card details on phone.

3. Rats And Keyloggers

In keylogging or RATing the hacker sends keylogger or rat to the victim. This allows hacker to monitor every thing victim do on his computer. Every keystroke is logged including passwords. Moreever hacker can even control the victims computer.

Countermeasure: Never login to your bank account from cyber cafe or someone else computer. If its important use on-screen or virtual keyboard while tying the login. Use latest anti-virus software and keep them updated. Check out below article to know more about Rats and Keyloggers.

• What is RAT ?
• What Is Keylogger And How To Be Safe From Keyloggers?

4. Phishing

Phishing is the most easiest and popular hacking method used by hackers to get someone account details. In Phishing attack hacker send fake page of real website like facebook, gmail to victim. When someone login through that fake page his details is send to the hacker. This fake pages can be easily created and hosted on free web-hosting sites.

Countermeasure: Phishing attacks are very easy to avoid. The url of this phishing pages are different from the real one. For example URL of phishing page of facebook might look like facbbook.com (As you can see There are two "b"). Always make sure that websites url is correct. Check out below article to know more about phishing.

• All About Phishing And How To Be Safe From Phishing ?

5. Rainbow Table

A Rainbow table is a huge pre-computed list of hashes for every possible combination of characters. A password hash is a password that has gone through a mathematical algorithm such as md5 and is transformed into something which is not recognizable. A hash is a one way encryption so once a password is hashed there is no way to get the original string from the hashed string. A very commonly used hashing algorithm to store passwords in website databases is MD5. It is almost similar to dictionary attack, the only difference is, in rainbow tables attack hashed characters are used as passwords whereas in dictionary attack normal characters are used as passwords. 

Example: ‘hello’ in md5 is 5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592 and zero length string ("") is d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

Countermeasure: Make sure you choose password that is long and complex. Creating tables for long and complex password takes a very long time and a lot of resources

6. Guessing

This seems silly but this can easily help you to get someones password within seconds. If hacker knows you, he can use information he knows about you to guess your password. Hacker can also use combination of Social Engineering and Guessing to acquire your password.

Countermeasure: Don't use your name, surname, phone number or birthdate as your password. Try to avoid creating password that relates to you. Create complex and long password with combination of letters and numbers.