Strong Mind: Our Fight

Our fight

We Are White Hat Hackers

Definition: Hackers that use their hacking skills for good are referred to as "white hat" hackers. Often referred to as Ethical Hackers, these non-criminal hackers are hired by companies to examine and test the integrity of their systems. Other white hat hackers, operate without company permission by bending but not breaking the laws and int progress have created some very cool features.

White hat

A white hat hacker, also rendered as ethical hacker, is, in the realm of information technology, a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of computer systems. Realization that the Internet now represents human voices from around the world has made the defense of its integrity an important pastime for many. A white hat generally focuses on securing IT systems, whereas a black hat (the opposite) would like to break into them.

"A hacker who is legally authorized to use otherwise illegal means to achieve objectives critical to the security of computer systems."

The term white hat hacker is also often used to describe those who attempt to break into systems or networks in order to help the owners of the system by making them aware of security flaws, or to perform some other altruistic activity for monetary gain or charity. Many such people are employed by computer security companies; these professionals are sometimes called sneakers. Groups of these people are often called tiger teams.

The primary difference between white and black hat hackers is that a white hat hacker observes ethical principles. Like black hats, white hats are often intimately familiar with the internal details of security systems, and can delve into obscure machine code when needed to find a solution to a tricky problem. Some use the term grey hat and fewer use brown hat to describe someone's activities that cross between black and white.

In recent years the terms white hat and black hat have been applied to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry. Black hat SEO tactics, also called spamdexing, attempt unfairly to redirect search results to particular target pages, whereas white hat methods are generally approved by the search engines.

The Goals Of Our Fight:

Promote free software, open source software and open standards in the State Administration (SA) of the Republic of Bulgaria and in other fields of the management, economics and households;

Actually united companies dealing with development, integration and promotion of open source, free software and culture;

Organize events and campaigns to promote the implementation of open source, free software, open standards and technologies;

Cooperate with similar organizations for protection of the digital rights, software freedom and ideas;

Participate in projects, researches and cooperative initiatives related to open source, free software and culture and for to the preservation of digital rights;

Stimulate and promote open source or free software projects developed in Bulgaria;

Assist small and medium enterprises in finding ways for open technological development.

Who is Who in the Computer Underground?

I define the computer underground as members of the following six groups. Sometimes I refer to the CU as "90s hackers" or "new hackers," as opposed to old hackers, who are hackers (old sense of the term) from the 60s who subscribed to the original Hacker Ethic. See below:

Hackers (Crackers, system intruders) - These are people who attempt to penetrate security systems on remote computers. This is the new sense of the term, whereas the old sense of the term simply referred to a person who was capable of creating hacks, or elegant, unusual, and unexpected uses of technology. Typical magazines (both print and online) read by hackers include 2600 and Iron Feather Journal.

Phreaks (Phone Phreakers, Blue Boxers) - These are people who attempt to use technology to explore and/or control the telephone system. Originally, this involved the use of "blue boxes" or tone generators, but as the phone company began using digital instead of electro-mechanical switches, the phreaks became more like hackers. Typical magazines read by Phreaks include Phrack, Line Noize, and New Fone Express.

Virus writers (also, creators of Trojans, worms, logic bombs) - These are people who write code which attempts to a) reproduce itself on other systems without authorization and b) often has a side effect, whether that be to display a message, play a prank, or trash a hard drive. Agents and spiders are essentially 'benevolent' virii, raising the question of how underground this activity really is. Typical magazines read by Virus writers include 40HEX.

Pirates - Piracy is sort of a non-technical matter. Originally, it involved breaking copy protection on software, and this activity was called "cracking." Nowadays, few software vendors use copy protection, but there are still various minor measures used to prevent the unauthorized duplication of software. Pirates devote themselves to thwarting these things and sharing commercial software freely with their friends. They usually read Pirate Newsletter and Pirate magazine.

Cypherpunks (cryptoanarchists) - Cypherpunks freely distribute the tools and methods for making use of strong encryption, which is basically unbreakable except by massive supercomputers. Because the NSA and FBI cannot break strong encryption (which is the basis of the PGP or Pretty Good Privacy), programs that employ it are classified as munitions, and distribution of algorithms that make use of it is a felony. Some cryptoanarchists advocate strong encryption as a tool to completely evade the State, by preventing any access whatsoever to financial or personal information. They typically read the Cypherpunks mailing list.

Anarchists - are committed to distributing illegal (or at least morally suspect) information, including but not limited to data on bombmaking, lockpicking, pornography, drug manufacturing, pirate radio, and cable and satellite TV piracy. In this parlance of the computer underground, anarchists are less likely to advocate the overthrow of government than the simple refusal to obey restrictions on distributing information. They tend to read Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) and Activist Times Incorporated (ATI).

Cyberpunk - usually some combination of the above, plus interest in technological self-modification, science fiction of the Neuromancer genre, and interest in hardware hacking and "street tech." A youth subculture in its own right, with some overlaps with the "modern primitive" and "raver" subcultures.