More Ways to View Hacking

by Bobby Joe Snyder

Wanting to be called a hacker is all about the title.

There is nothing wrong with that.  In fact, it is common to want to be something.  Titles are just what we call ourselves when we belong to something.

I wanted to be an engineer once.  But you have to earn the title.  I went to school for a while but had to leave.  I never stopped wanting to be an engineer though.  I would do self-studies to learn C++ or study statics and dynamics, learning methods such as relative velocity I never quite got a good understanding of.

Eventually I went to online college through the University of Phoenix.

The courses weren't bad, not quite the experience of a traditional university, but I got a degree in computer science.  Then I realized so much of my learning is theory.  Engineers are meant to apply theory to build stuff.  I know ideas are powerful, but hands-on is what theory is supposed to augment the actual task.

But I am in no way saying ideas aren't important; just don't forget to apply them to the hands-on stuff.  Besides ideas are what we learn in our schools.  Most computer users today learned theory.  But computers are more hands-on than they appear.  We all know that to apply what we learned, we must create something new.  But we must be careful of the ideas and creations we make.

I wanted the title engineer, not for the title alone, but because of what being an engineer means.

An engineer is someone who takes the theory they know and builds something to improve the world.  But what if someone wants the title of hacker for what it stands for?  As we learn from 2600, hacker does not mean criminal.  A hacker is one who uses ideas to create, usually utilizing technology.

So if a hacker wanted a different, traditional title, they may be a software engineer or computer scientist.  But those are traditional titles.  A hacker title may mean a different form of education, but the title may be even more prestigious.  Why?  Because traditional titles are becoming more expensive to get and teaching less that applies to real-world creation.

Titles are important, but the qualities of the person who we call the title are what is more important.  The name is important, but now the title is just a list of qualities.  It is the person behind those qualities, separate of those qualities, that decide how the title is represented.

Hacker can mean someone who redefines the computer scene.

But is this redefinition good or bad for society?  That is a tricky part: what if your title says you are relatively smart?  It would be nice to achieve this quality.  But isn't it just as important to be ethical?  The traditional schools usually do teach this to some extent.  Passing a test to become a licensed engineer would require remembering ethics, such as not using your skills in areas where you are not proficient.

But why do I care to explain "titles" and ethical qualities?  Because I'm just like you and don't know how to balance a title and ethics.  Generally, I know what is right, but the application of knowing what is right and doing what is right is difficult.

In my own experience in trying to be a hacker, I wrote some mathematical equations that try and solve N = p * q, knowing only N.

Well, it is debatable whether or not the equations are useful.  But let's assume they are.  If my equations work, it would mean that RSA and other public-key ciphers using factoring as the basis of a one-way function would be less secure and need bigger key sizes.

But if they work, are the equations just a mathematical exercise or do they compromise RSA?

The RSA algorithm is public knowledge.  It is actually beneficial if an exploit on it is found and shared, then if an exploit exists and only black hats know it.  Here we see another title: black hats.  But conversely, what if the black hat had no knowledge or even interest in the exploit before?

To make things even more confusing, the fact remains that we don't know how much cryptography actually protects us.  Sure, the computer is powerful and fast when it comes to math and substitution, but does it work?

In fact, before Whitfield Diffie, public-key cryptography didn't even seem possible.  An algorithm that seems to be a definite one-way-function seems impossible to some, but others question if one-way-functions exist.

I don't consider myself a hacker.

I just have an interest in math and cryptography.  And I'm not an engineer, yet.  I just want to show the confliction of right and wrong in the digital age.  We all have a sense of right and wrong.  But can we disclose information without there being ethical considerations?  I don't know.  Is breaking a cipher wrong, or is it just completing the struggle between enciphering and deciphering?

O.K., continuing on.

I have an overly complicated equation that shows a relationship in semi-prime numbers.  Whether you believe it is useful or not is up to you.  But say I did find p knowing only N:RSA would be insecure.

RSA would now stand for "Reveal the Secret Answer."  My method wouldn't destroy RSA, but it might make you rethink how you feel about encryption.  Do all those math substitutions really do anything but mark your data as important enough to keep secret?  The average user doesn't know.  And even experts aren't certain.

Today we have politics and we cannot agree.

I'm sure it has always been this way.  The July 25^th episode of Off The Hook talked about politics and those of differing beliefs trolling around the area at this year's HOPE conference.

I don't think you can be a person and not be political.  Everyone doesn't agree on religion, presidents, or values.

I don't think you can be a hacker without your values being reflected.  And I don't expect a hackers' conference to not have political themes.  I just think we are arguing who is right without even knowing the other person or if what they represent is just.

If you want your views to be respected, you must respect others.  But I think we lost sight of the goal of what we as hackers are for.  We enjoy tinkering with computers, math, or any of our other passions.

Trolling around is just a way of defending a person's own desires by forcing their beliefs onto someone else.  The troll believes he is superior in some way.  Actuality, it just shows ignorance and ends up undermining the troll's good values and beliefs.

Instead of a great idea, we see someone who is racist or just plain evil.  And this just leads to fights.  People are not going to take the troll's ideas credibly.  After all, the trolls are just there to disrupt the fun and cause havoc.

But all the great creativity and inventiveness is lost by trolls.

What should be a day with fellowship of hackers and what they do for fun is overcome by politics.  And by hackers, I mean the true hacking spirit that 2600 tries so much to define, enlighten, and describe.

I am not saying that differences between people can be overlooked.

We haven't achieved world peace or a perfect society.  For demonstrative purposes, I will take the biggest judgment call of HOPE that I watched on the Internet stream.  I am not going to attack Chelsea Manning, because I do not know the specifics of the trial or imprisonment.

Some see Chelsea as a hacker.  He blew the whistle on military corruption and let the world see it on WikiLeaks.  But what if Chelsea lacked the knowledge and understanding of the information to make the decision on whether to expose the corruption?  What if by exposing the information, it put fellow soldiers at risk?  Very few people, others than those who handled the material know the answer.

So, we are left to read conflicting views and make a judgment with the same lack of perfect knowledge as Chelsea had in deciding to release the classified material.  We don't even know what to believe, but we are willing to fight over it.

I don't know if Chelsea is a hacker.  I don't even know if I am a hacker.  I don't know the answers.

I just think we are picking the wrong battles.  If we fight over small differences, how much more will we fight on issues that we truly believe in?  I think we are taking all the things that make hacking great, things that we agree upon and which bring us together, and instead are fighting over an issue that angered us when we watched the evening news.

People are going to have conflicting views.  I don't think politicians are helping the cause.  But what we do as a hacker and what we do as a person should not be another statistic to add hate.

Ever since that last presidential election, I began to hate politics.

I still want America to succeed, but we are fighting over and not fixing problems.  I don't know if the news is fake or not.  I have seen different sides of the Trump debate and have lost friends because of it.  I don't know how fake news influences an election while candidates run their own fake ads.

Do you see why it is so easy to want to explore patterns in prime numbers or read about cryptocurrency?  I'm not giving up; I still vote and want to see America stay great.

I just wish sometimes hacking would be less political and focused more on why we hack or attempt to hack.  We need an escape from the mess of the political system.

A friend of mine says Trump tweets or doublespeaks and we get mad and make jokes on late night TV.  Then two days later, everyone forgets about it.  And while we get a good laugh, these are serious issues facing our country.  The only thing people are doing to help politically is to make jokes.

If Russian hackers did influence the election, does that mean they were in control of it?  After all, isn't influencing an election the goal of each candidate?  In my view, there is no way to control the election.  A candidate could try and does, but the voting system is like the universe is to a physicist, unpredictable.

If as hackers we could agree on political views, we could hack the system so (((Bernie))) wins.  But again, the election is safe, because hackers can't agree on who to vote for.  So, I don't think you can influence the election, because if the Russian government felt Trump would be the better choice, who says that Hillary doesn't have the same backing of another government or organization?

I think that the duty of hackers is to protect our freedoms.

No matter what political views, we can believe in the Bill of Rights.  We want to think differently because our rights allow us to think differently.  But we should always look to the rights we agree on.

Hackers should defend freedoms.

I'm sure there are bad hackers out there trying to take away freedoms.  But that isn't the type of hacker that would be at a HOPE conference.

So as hackers, we might be divided by the last presidential election.  But remember, there are bigger battles than who we voted for.  And no matter who is president, it doesn't change the hacker's job of protecting our freedoms.