Would any of you guys be interested in reading over my paper for english 102...

would any of you guys be interested in reading over my paper for english 102? It's about hacking and its due at 5 so I've got time to kill.

Sure

Why the fuck would anyone want to hear what an English student has to say about "hacking"?

In the modern world we live in today, the transfer of information is almost instantaneous and is vital to the functioning of many people’s lives. Whether this information be simple messaging back and forth about plans for dinner, or top secret classified government plans being transferred from one branch to another, this flow of information is vital. However, many people make a living by breaking into this flow of information and getting hold of information such as credit cards, bank accounts, social media passwords, and even access and control over the computer systems and servers of whole buildings, websites, and corporations. These people are often called hackers, and can hold this information and lock out the original user and hold the accounts for ransom or use them to cause detrimental damage to the account holder. So with this basic information about hackers, one would think that there is absolutely no good that can come from this activity, however I will prove that there can be many good things to come from hackers, and I will argue that “ethical hacking” as a skill should be taught in schools for the benefits of many people.

im an engineering major, english classes are requirement

For me to be able to explain the good that can come from hacking, we have to look at all the bad that comes from it, and why it is tough to deal with many cases. I will also go into detail about the way that these cases are dealt with and how many try to prevent hacking. I believe it is also important to understand some of the ways that hackers are able to gain access, as well as why many are opposed to the thought of teaching people in schools to be hackers. First though, I will have to go over some basic terminology in describing the current state of hackers and their society.
The basic way to look at hackers is the classic good and evil, moral and immoral, black and white. Hackers that hack for personal gain and to cause damage and grief upon people are known as black hat hackers, whilst those who hack to help people, such as showing them flaws in programs or holes in networks that companies may have, are known as white hat hackers. In the hacking community, it can also be quite easy to pick up the tools that they use, as programs can be shared from one hacker to another via data sharing sites, and with these programs, amateurs can easily pick up some of the simpler ways to get into somebody's computer. Most hackers usually acquire their programs this way, but someone has to actually make the program, these people are known as coders or programmers, and actually write the code that amateur hackers use.

While much of hacking is the technical know-how of computers and code, as shown by coders, hacking doesn’t necessarily even have to use code or programs. Another way that hackers are able to gain access to systems is through clever social engineering. A hacker simply has to get the username/password of someones account to get access. By using this concept, many are able use a small bit of technical know-how and try to use the unawareness of a victim to get their information.
One such way is by using popular social media, if a hacker can get a list of friends for one account, and find the email of those friends, the hacker can make a fake email that looks like it is through the social media platform from the friend in question, and can make it look like it as invitation to some event or game. Once the hacker makes the fake email, they simply use a link for the invite that goes to a fake website they set up to look like the social media website, such as facedook.com instead of facebook.com, and have it imitate the login screen for this site. At this point the unsuspecting victim will usually put in their account information, and like this, they have actually given the information to their account directly to the hacker. In this way the hacker is able to use relatively simple coding knowledge and a bit of social engineering to get the victim to essentially give them direct access to their account.

Now I’d like go onto some of the very detrimental attributes and actions that many black hat hackers have done. One of the many ways that hackers are able to gain money is by stealing it from bank accounts they have been able to hack into, or by holding data and computer networks for ransom. As I have already shown how a hacker gains access to a single account, such as the bank account, I’m going to show how they may hold a computer network ransom, as this is a major problem that affects many hospitals, and as my mother is a charge nurse, I have gleamed some inside information about incidents of hospitals in South Carolina getting targeted by hackers as being part of the their meetings as one of their sister hospitals had been the target of a hacker attack. The reason that hospitals are the main targets of these attacks is because they have to have unsecured data transmission throughout the hospital so that patient data can get to where it needs go quickly, so that those precious seconds may save lives at times. Hackers, however, have been able to target these networks and will put programs that lock out everyone in the hospital from the network, and this causes them to get no patient data and thus utterly disrupts the functioning of a hospital many times, and hospitals are more often than not forced to pay some type of ransom to the hacker to free their network, or they risk never being able to get back to the data or the hacker deleting it all.

It is also with unsecured networks that a hacker may set up in public that they are able to monitor the information of people who use that network. All by setting up a wifi network in public with no password, people will join, and the hacker is able to monitor his network and where people are going on their computers. Along with this, they are able to intercept the information sent to websites, so this can include passwords and usernames, or credit card information if the victim happens to have bought something while on this network. This example is another example of social engineering, as the hacker could set up this network in an area where many shops are, and if many of these shops have passwords on their wifi networks, the hacker can be quite confident that people will join their network at some point, and with this, they can monitor all the traffic on their network over time and will be able to get information.
We can see that hackers can gain information over unsecure networks quite easily, but it’s not as simple as them just having your information for simply using a wifi network. Websites do actually try to protect your information, and the way they achieve this is by encrypting it. By encrypting information it becomes scrambled almost like a puzzle that can’t be solved without a key or legend. Many sites use encryption programs to scramble the data as it is sent over networks, however they have unscramble it, so it is also possible for hackers to get the encrypted data and unscramble it themselves. They cannot do this without the right encryption program however, so it may take them many days to find out the right type of program to use, not to mention them also having to be able to actually get the program from some place.

This is the intro then?

Pretty good. Is a directional statement a requirement?

yeah that's the intro
a thesis that's meant to answer research question you choose, I just went direct with it though.

Now that we see much of the potential danger that hackers pose upon the modern world, we should take a look at the good that can come from hackers. What white hat hackers do is that they many times hack organizations that are bad, like the anonymous hacking of an ISIS website to make its banner the gay pride flag and generally ruin the site for users, or they run penetration test for companies to show them where a hacker can get in through their code, although many hackers that do this type of hacking have the permission of the company first and are many times actually getting paid to help them out this way. Another way that hackers are able to do good is in the general cybersecurity market, as they can test out if a program is actually good antivirus and whatnot and help these programs be able to detect different kinds of newer viruses.
White hat hackers help to advance the cyber security market, and this is something that needs to happen, as people around the world will be able to pick up hacking anyway, that’s why there are already so many hackers that are able to take people's personal information. So by helping to show the flaws and of current cyber security techniques and programs, white hats are able to advance the industry and help protect more people from malicious hackers.

It's pretty good. Keep in mind that the details aren't essential for an English paper. And that the strength of the argument is what you will be graded on.

So as we can see, we can think of these white hat hackers as using their skills to try to make it harder for black hat hackers to target people. However, another way that white hat hackers help people are by actually being hired by governments to train a cybersecurity team and teach them their skills. This helps the country to protect critical information and protect themselves from cyber attacks. This does, however, lead into the concern of how that country will use its new knowledge and team. They pose potentially the same threat that any school taught “ethical” hacker may pose, in that they could go rogue.

It is partly this reason why many, like Eugene Spafford, a professor of computer science at Purdue University and a leading computer security expert, argue that computer hacking in of itself is unethical and immoral (“Are Computer Hacker Break-Ins Ethical?” Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 17), with one author likening the situation to a locksmith being praised for not breaking into people’s homes. Spafford affirms this by stating that ethics should be measured on the act itself, not the consequences. One example that shows this is the Morris Worm that was supposedly leaked to the internet to show the security flaws in 1988, however the worm ended up running amok and infecting hundreds of pieces of equipment, causing between $250,000 to $96 million dollars worth of damage to systems. The worm coding itself did not do damage, but it would self replicate so quickly that a system would begin to slow and eventually crash from the work replicating so quickly. Spafford was actually one the people to experience the effects of the worm in his lab and helped to take it down. When Spafford was asked about why he believes Morris did it, he said that he didn’t believe he did it to show security flaws, saying that "I've never really bought into the idea that you've gotta burn a building down to show it's flammable." However, to counter this point of programs going out of control, this is why penetration testers are hired or get permission first from the client, and is part of the code of conduct for the Ethical Hacker Certification.

thanks, this is just the rough draft due today, so I'll keep that in mind when I go to revise it. I feel like I ramble on too much about details, guess that's part of why I'm going engineering though.

Another argument made by Spafford is against the “Hacker Ethic,” which states that information wants to be free, and is generally why many hackers also see hidden information as a challenge to reach for. Spafford argues that this mentality destroys privacy and property, if all information were free, then bank account information, medical records, and employment records would be available to all and destroys the privacy that many people want. He also goes on to state that if all information is free to all, then it cannot be trusted as anyone could alter it and no one could trust any information that is out there to be unaltered. However, with many of the techniques that we see on places such as the deep web, we can see that people use programs to put a digital signature on any information that they put out, and by using a system of keys, they are able to give it to some recipient and the recipient confirms that the information is coming from them, which maintains the validity of information. We also see that many people are able to hold onto their anonymity by using handles to go by online, or by identifying underneath a group and following that group's code of conduct.

I would now also like to defend the “Hacker Ethic” and show that it as well has caused many things to come to light and help people know what is going on in the world. Many people know about the stories of whistleblowers like snowden, and much of the information that has been leaked by wikileaks, such as the podesta emails, DNC information, and most recently, the Vault 7 leaks that show that the CIA is able to hack into just about any smart phone, TV, and even cars to take over the control system. If it were not for these parties leaking out such information, the world would otherwise not know of the surveillance being put onto them without their knowledge or consent. It also brings to the public’s eyes what their government is capable of, and are, doing. It helps them to think about their security and helps them to try to protect themselves somewhat.
From these, we can see why many have a “Big Brother is watching” mentality, and why many people don’t trust government or corporate institutions, as they can easily abuse and misuse information. Many hackers also hack with the intention of, “Keeping “Big Brother” at bay,” as the secrecy of the government and their obvious advantage in funding and technology leave them to resent the unfairness of them using it to mass monitor those who have no idea. Spafford had agreed with the fact that such institutions can misuse personal data, he however believes that hackers should not attempt to get the information, as it could cause them to become more secretive with such data and put more restrictions on it, though I believe this could be seen as a partly good thing, in that it causes the data to be more protected from other malicious hackers who may be trying to hack such institutions.

Spafford also raises the question about letting hackers “protect us”, and asks “Shouldn’t we be relying on professionals and designers concerns with our rights?” This brings me to my point of why ethical hacking should be taught in more schools. There is currently an organization that does give the qualification of Certified Ethical Hacker, and one can apply to take a test for the qualification, however, you have to have a prior two years experience in the field combined with educational background in some cases, or receive training at one of their certified centers. In recent years, there have also been many positions that require certification, in the government and commercial sector. This certification is much like the certificate that a mechanic must get to be able to work on certain manufacturer cars and gain benefits for being certified. I believe that there are many people that would be exceptional in the field of hacking, but many are driven away from the field because of the stigma that relates the word hacker to simply a cyber criminal, and this causes them to not seek out the certification they could get. I believe that if there could be more courses for the ethical certification of hackers and that they were more open, then the talent that comes from these courses would lead to great advances in the cybersecurity field. I also believe that such course would expose some people who may have already started on their way of hacking to a proper ethical code of conduct, and could show them a path they might not have known of.

I believe even some type of course that introduces people to the dangers of hackers and how they utilize social engineering would help prevent many people from getting hacked. Many people may know about fake emails and such, but have never actually seen one, and so if in this course it simply showed them examples as well, I’m sure that many people would be able to protect themselves from the modern danger that malicious hackers pose, as well as educating themselves on the potential benefits that come with advancing cybersecurity and having ethical hackers.
It is for these many reasons that I believe ethical hacking and ethical hackers can be an invaluable resource for many peoples in our generation of technology. They help to egg the cyber security industry on, which helps to inhibit the progression of malicious hackers, as well as potentially providing a transparency between the public and institutions that may be mis handling delicate personal information. While teaching hacking can pose the threat of hackers going rogue, this is why we have the Certified Ethical Hacker qualification, that certifies that a hacker knows how to behave and will not step outside of his boundaries. Even if one does, there are likely many other hackers that could even potentially hack the one because he did go out of bounds. Overall, I believe that the skill and resources society gains from hackers are invaluable and would do a great good to the security of everyone if it can be promoted in the right way.
and that's the end of what this faggot has been finishing all day

I find your simplifications of the hacking concepts to be correct. You might want to think about structuring your essay a bit more. And again, probably too much detail in some places.

That's everything I have to say on that. Good luck.

Thanks, I think it came out all right for a rough draft and considering the fact that it was honestly hastily done at points, but I'll keep this mind when I go to revise everything later on.