Forwarded From: Jeremy Mineweaser <jlm@null.net>
Family PC Magazine, November 1998 Issue
Is Your Kid a Hacker?
By Kevin Poulsen
If you suspect your kid is a computer hacker,
here's some advice from a convicted hacker
on how to handle it
It starts with a knock on the door. A dozen men in suits and shoulder
holsters are outside, their Buicks and Broncos crammed into your driveway
and parked along the street. Over their shoulders you can see your
bathrobe-clad neighbors watching the spectacle from their lawns. It might
be the FBI, it may be the Secret Service, but whoever it is, the humorless
agents hand you a piece of paper and head toward your son or daughter's
room. You wonder, perhaps for the first time, what your kid has been
doing in there with the computer.
If you're a parent, you probably regard the Internet as a font of both
promise and peril for your children. It can be an invaluable learning
tool and a way to encourage your kids to develop the basic computer skills
they'll eventually need. But what if they take to it a little too eagerly
and enthusiastically and begin using it to get into places where they
don't belong? In that case, normal youthful rebellion, or simple
inquisitiveness, if it's expressed over the Internet, could turn your
family upside down.
It happened last February in Cloverdale, California, when surprised
parents found out their teenage son was suspected in a series of Pentagon
intrusions. It happened again in Massachusetts a week later, when the
Justice Department won its first juvenile conviction under the Federal
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
It happened to my family 15 years ago, in one of the first hacker raids in
the country. At that time, I was the teenage miscreant who was illegally
accessing federal computers. Now, in my early thirties, I've begun to
wonder how I would protect a kid of my own from becoming a poster child
for computer crime. I believe the best approach is to stay informed and
to communicate with your potential cyberpunks.
Open Communication Channels
Some of the things you might view as ominous warning signs are actually
quite harmless. For example, if your teenager calls himself a "hacker,"
he may not be headed for trouble. Despite the media's breathless
exhortation, hackers are not lawbreakers by definition. The word actually
describes someone with a talent for technology, a deep interest in how
things work, and a tendency to reject any limitations. If your son
disassembled the Giga Pet you gave him for Christmas, he's probably a
hacker. If he made it run better, he definitely is. Of course, some
hackers go further and test their skills against the adult world of
corporate and governmental computer systems.
If I thought my kids were cracking computers, I would want to put a stop
to it -- though not because it's the crime of the century. True hackers
live by an ethical code that precludes damaging systems or profiting from
their intrusions. There are worse values for a teenager to have. But
regardless of motives, a hacker who's caught in the act today is likely to
be treated as an industrial spy or a national security threat. A single
moment of rebellious exploration could land a teenager an early felony
conviction.
If you suspect that your kid may be crossing the line, there are various
software packages on the market that will allow you to monitor or control
his or her access to the Internet. Don't even think about using one. If
your teen really is a hacker, your technological solution will be a source
of amusement and derision, as well as an insult to his talents. Instead of
putting up barriers, I suggest you talk to your kids.
If your kid is reading underground Web sites for hackers, read them
yourself. If he has a subscription to a hacker magazine, go through it
and ask questions. Feel free to marvel at the cleverness of the latest
hacker technique. Then talk about consequences: the rising costs of legal
representation, the problems that a convicted felon encounters in academia
and the job market. Start looking at alternatives to a life of
cybercrime.
Constructive Alternatives
If your kid has a rebellious streak, I suggest giving up on trying to
suppress it; try to channel it instead. When hackers grow up, they often
find a reasonable substitute for the thrill of intrusion by working the
other side. Ask your teen how he would plug the latest security holes.
Get him thinking about it. Ask him for advice on protecting your own
e-mail or your ISP account.
The hacker tradition has always contained an element of disrespect for
authority. Up until 15 years ago, cracking systems was an acceptable rite
of passage in the industry, and some of the same people who pioneered
artificial intelligence and the personal computer also ushered in phone
phreaking, lock hacking, and computer intrusion. Early hackers believed
that computers were a public resource and that access to them and
knowledge about them should be free.
In a sense, the first-generation hackers won their battle when they
created the personal computer: It gave them free access to computing power
anytime they wanted. Today, kids can claim that victory on the Internet
by authoring a Web page. There is plenty of room for innovation and
creativity.
Today's PCs are as powerful as yesterday's mainframes. With today's PCs,
no one needs to break the law to explore technology. With the right tools,
and parental support, kids can earn the respect of their peers and get an
early start on their future by mastering the latest programming languages.
If my kid were a hacker, I'd encourage him to shun the instant
gratification of cracking a Fortune 500 company in favor of the greater
satisfaction of creating something unique from scratch.
Ultimately, that's what hacking really is all about.
-o-
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Received on Mon Oct 19 09:19:34 1998