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Sky News reports:
Hacking is ensnaring teenagers who would otherwise be unlikely to be involved in traditional crime, says a National Crime Agency [UK] report.
It aims to understand how teenagers become hackers and is based on interviews with eight young people cautioned or sentenced for hacking offences.
The average age of cybercrime suspects was 17 years old and that the availability of low-level hacking tools "encourages criminal behaviour", it said.
[...] The NCA report suggested that targeted interventions towards teenagers at the early stages of hacking can steer them away from criminal hacking.
"Just say no" to hacking tools.
Additional reporting: BBC
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UK NCA: Hacking Ensnaring Teenagers into Crime
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Limited delivery area.
(Score: 2) by Refugee from beyond on Monday April 24 2017, @09:18AM (6 children)
Is GNU/Linux a “hacking tool?”
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:42AM (5 children)
Yes, why wouldn't you use the copy of Windows that came with your machine? Are you hiding some illegal activity citizen?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:43AM (4 children)
My machine didn't come with a copy of Windows.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:45AM (3 children)
My copy of Windows didn't come with a machine!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @12:27PM (2 children)
This is what happens if you download your copy of windows from TPB.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @02:31PM (1 child)
Well, I wasn't able to find the torrent for the hardware. I also had trouble locating a good torrent for the new Lamborghini I'd wanted to download. Found one but it turned out to be a Pinto after the torrent finished. Any advice?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @03:43PM
steal it from the street? After all, You wouldn't download a car!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Soylentbob on Monday April 24 2017, @09:45AM (8 children)
are the main reasons for kids becoming criminal hackers. We (my generation, 1970ties) legally copied our music from LP to cassette, we legally connected two video recorders and copied movies for personal use (Yes, in Germany that was/is legal!). With the DMCA, the equivalent digital activity became illegal. DVDs had a crappy encryption algorithm, it was basically entrapment. Systems on the Internet are wide open, and instead of embracing the hacking kids (which would probably leave a minor defacement or "Killroy was here" equivalent) and seeing them as cheap security-audit, we criminalize them and wait for malicious hackers to take advantage of our ignorance while complaining that our young adults are not qualified to defend our systems (how could they? The hands-on approach to learn about security is criminalized!)
BTW: "Hacking" is an ambiguous term in this context at best. The CCC [wikipedia.org] is a legal association of self-proclaimed hackers, endorsing some Hacker ethics [wikipedia.org] (read-worthy!) and define "hacking" more like creative use of technique, as in e.g. lifehack [wikipedia.org], although probably more technical.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @10:13AM (7 children)
If punishments for no-harm low grade intrusion were decriminalized. Perhaps it would make developers and administrators pay more attention. As for defining hacking, it's mainstream media that derailed the meaning of that word. Perhaps with intention.
Kids should also be taught the true personal character traits of "MBA" and "management" so as to know how to deal with them efficiently and usefully.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Monday April 24 2017, @10:53AM (2 children)
Kids should also be taught the true personal character traits of "MBA" and "management" so as to know how to deal with them efficiently and usefully.
<sarcasm>Isn't that also criminalized nowadays? In some places even punishable by death?</sarcasm>
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 24 2017, @12:39PM
Naaaahh... BOFH dealt efficiently and usefully [theregister.co.uk] with these kinds for some 20 years.
If you don't get my gist, here's an example [theregister.co.uk]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @01:34PM
You learn their weaknesses (tech) and strengths (people manipulation) and apply a good amount of IQ to the problem. Of course productivity can suffer but they won't realize that because they awareness is selective. While some cognitive skills simple are absent. ;-)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cubancigar11 on Monday April 24 2017, @01:09PM (3 children)
Ken Thompson [cmu.edu]:
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @01:38PM (2 children)
Makers of press, television, and movies are stupid or is intentionally dumbing down. Misrepresentation is something they unknowingly know at least :p And this already in 1984. Seems they have "improved" since then.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday April 25 2017, @01:55PM (1 child)
Yes, the whiz-kid hacker archetype is now mostly only limited to action movies which, to their defense, also show heroes committing murder and avoiding police. I think the problem is now just limited to 'cultural gap'. Technology is moving so fast, that very literate journalists and geeky writers still can't imagine the depth and ease of availability of hacking tools.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:13AM
So they actually ever had a imagination connected to reality? :)
Hackers and programmers got cool once and only when people connected money to it. Gold-digger central..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @10:06AM (4 children)
What the article seems to refer to is "script kids" which weren't a thing in the past because computers were "boring" and didn't have much presence in public life except for specialized shops or large organizations. Secondly it required interest and brains to even get started.
Which is very different from "hackers" that explores and learn systems, without.. messing them up or their users. The misuse of the hacker word stems from moronic media. Which now is getting steam rolled by digital bits, which does them right.
What schools should do is to teach conduct not "don't do drugs", "don't have sex", "don't test cool script" etc. Of course if the counterpart behaves like an asshole mafia, well there's fitting conduct for that. If the school mission is to make obedient and intelligent but unwise persons to use as wage drones. Then they have effective undermined themselves.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday April 24 2017, @10:20AM (3 children)
Would we accept cars that got fouled up at road signs as well as we accept computers that get fouled up at scripts?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Monday April 24 2017, @11:46AM (2 children)
Would we accept cars that got fouled up at road signs
But of course! The autonomous car industry banks on it! Or do you think when the car computers learn to read road signs, suddenly all software will be bug-free? ;-)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday April 24 2017, @01:50PM (1 child)
I actually think you are on to something. Stuff like painting roads in UV-paint, faked pedestrian through illuminated dust or direct beam, QR codes outdoors, resonance lines, etc
Regardless I have no confidence at all in corporations designing computers involved in vehicle security. They just don't have the culture or procedures for sufficient safety. On top of this they will be pressured by the alphabet soup to enable them to hurt their users, and people in physical proximity.
The first car to autonomously deliver chemical components that really rapidly decompose will perhaps also transmit a clue to the public by reality that some things just isn't a good idea.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Soylentbob on Monday April 24 2017, @01:59PM
I actually think you are on to something.
May be... [techcrunch.com] :-)
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 24 2017, @12:19PM
Hell, I'm the pusher. I've introduced a couple dozen people to Linux, Wireshark, and a few other beginner's tools. Once they're hooked, I start charging them. Of course, that hasn't worked out very profitably - they tend to just go online to get their fix.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday April 24 2017, @01:36PM (2 children)
This is ridiculous on another level. It's amazing how much the masses can fear and hate those who are smarter and/or more knowledgeable. We now have a government with a narcissist at the head that just might drop a nuke or two, lying that it's about defense against some contrived threat when it's really for the publicity. Plus they would probably get a thrill out of pushing the envelope to such extremes. One nuclear bomb detonation won't destroy civilization, unless it provokes nuclear retaliation, so that we get Mutually Assured Destruction. And people are more afraid of hackers than of an inept, incompetent, stupid, and possibly even mentally crazy government with the ability to drop a nuclear bomb or two.
Maybe our best hope is that the designers of the nuclear weapons controls left backdoors that can only disable the systems, can't be used to do a launch or detonation. Be a shame if some insane government tries to launch the nukes, and no hackers can stop it because they've all been locked up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @02:37PM
I hope there is MAD. How else are humans going to learn that they've evolved with a very dangerous trait (or two depending on how you look at it)? Sociopaths won't be bred out probably for tens of millions of years, but if MAD happened, perhaps humans could learn that when a sociopath gets their "member of the pack" instinct revving, it's a red flag.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday April 24 2017, @03:09PM
Maybe our best hope is that the designers of the nuclear weapons controls left backdoors that can only disable the systems, can't be used to do a launch or detonation.
They did the opposite. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:43PM (4 children)
What's this, Soylent allows regex-like expressions as user-names? Is it just me, or does this seem like a risky practice?
(Score: 1) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Monday April 24 2017, @09:55PM
wfm
https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling
(Score: 1) by a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),- on Monday April 24 2017, @10:08PM
and uh oh yeah 0-9a-zA-Z_.+!*'()123 is my username on /.
https://newrepublic.com/article/114112/anonymouth-linguistic-tool-might-have-helped-jk-rowling
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday April 24 2017, @10:49PM (1 child)
The link in the summary doesn't work. It links to /~a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),-/ [soylentnews.org] instead of /~a-zA-Z0-9$_.+!*'(),-/ [soylentnews.org] .
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday April 24 2017, @10:53PM