DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY

Ramon V. DEL Rosario College of Business

Critique Paper
Hackers: Outlaws and Angels
Submitted to:
Prof. Nelson Celis

Submitted by:
Alvarez, Lester
De Guzman, Nieves II
Dy, Justin Richmond
Landicho, Joey
Lofamia, Mary Jane
Tan, Nerissa Irelle

March 29, 2016

Summary:

A Hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks, either
for profit or motivated by the challenge. The subculture that has evolved around hackers
is often referred to as the computer underground but is now an open community.

Ian Murphy, also known as Captain Zap, is said to have done the greatest hack
ever. Was the first cracker to be tried and convicted as a felon. Murphy broke into
AT&T's computers in 1981 and changed the internal clocks that metered billing rates.
People were getting late-night discount rates when they called at midday. Of course, the
bargain-seekers who waited until midnight to call long distance were hit with high bills.
Murphy, now the chairman of IAM/Secure Data System, was the inspiration for the
movie "Sneakers."

So at first the term hacker referred to just people who breaks computer security.
But later hacker splits to two main sides. The Black Hats and the White Hats.

A white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons, for instance testing
their own security system. This classification also includes individuals who perform
penetration tests and vulnerability assessments within a contractual agreement. Often,
this type of 'white hat' hacker is called an ethical hacker. The International Council of
Electronic Commerce Consultants, also known as the EC-Council has developed
certifications, courseware, classes, and online training covering the diverse arena of
Ethical Hacking.

A black hat is the villain or bad guy, especially in a western movie in which such
a character would wear a black hat in contrast to the hero's white hat. A black hat
hacker, sometimes called "cracker," is someone who breaks computer security without
authorization or uses technology (usually a computer, phone system or network) for
malicious reasons such as vandalism, credit card fraud, identity theft, piracy, or other
types of illegal activity.

After learning much about hackers and internet security, we now know that the
internet isnt the most safest place and that we need protection as much as we can. The
least we can do right now is to keep our own system safe. Little things like keeping a
strong password, not sharing any account with somebody else can help in improving
our security.

Critical Analysis of the Movie

Advancements in technology specifically the internet have both positive and
negative effects on society. With the birth of the Internet, people are able to transmit
and retrieve information through wireless network even in a matter of seconds.
Transactions are conveniently done, much faster and more easily.

These scientific

advances however are not error or fraud proof. One major downside is information can
now be sourced anytime anywhere and hackers have founds ways to break into
confidential databases, software source codes and hardware systems.

Businesses

have also become exposed to certain risks as some hackers can now create viruses

that are capable of erasing critical information, disrupt operations, or obtain sensitive
information that can duly hurt or harm organizations, even governments.

After seeing the movie, I start to notice about the importance of information
security- something I never think about seriously. Since 6 years ago, I became an active
internet user, It all started with MSN, Friendster and now Facebook and Twitter. Almost
all of my friends who are using these sites use it for the purpose of fun. We chat, played
games, tag photos and we did not realize that it give so many information about us. So
these social networking sites more or less represent our personality and life around us.

Having said this, questions just popped out of my mind which made me wonder:
WHAT IF- Someone use my information to do something cruel?
WHAT IF- Someone hack my profile and spread negative information from me?
WHAT IF- Someone hack and could access my credit card from online payment?
We have to secure our profile to minimize the risk of becoming the victim of cyber crime.

There are people who are extremely expert in the IT world that he/she could
break our personal information and the numbers of these people are increasing at a
magnificent speed these days.
In todays world and generation, proliferated information also increase the risks of
business information crisis. The video showed how important it is to give high
information system protection. One question that run in my mind is that, how can the
government help in protecting people and business information against illegal hackers.
Additionally, another thought was, are the government (especially here in our country,

The Philippines) aware about the high risk of illegal hacking? Probably not that much. I
can presume that this illegal hacking can be one of the culprit of most cybercrimes that
happen in our country. Cybercrimes such as the illegal personal information intrusion by
somebody to use for their personal gains and to cite the most current example is RCBCAMLA controversy.

In todays fast changing technological environment, it is not uncommon to have

this issue of hackers. But we can put this issue as either for outlaws or angels (good or
bad). We are now living in a Digital world using lots of social media such as twitter,
linked-in, Instagram, emails, blogs, Facebook and even online payment facilities such
as credit cards and online businesses. Almost all individuals are using these different
social media as well as the business sector, government and all other establishments in
the world.

There are laws initiated and implemented to control and govern this fast
changing environment in technology. But I think we cannot control those people who
really want the bad side and to have a grey market by hacking private information
especially in the business and government sectors.

All of these are part of globalization that is why I think the government and the
business sectors should unite to come up with a central business unit that will control
and monitor the privacy of the Digital world. This unit will be responsible for making an
update of information about all the forms of hacking in the world. Like all other

departments in the government, I think this Information Technology should be now give
importance to be their advising unit like the purpose of Central Intelligence Unit but this
will be more focus on Technology.

The way we can see it, government and private sector need to do something
about it. Both need to disseminate awareness regarding hacking practices and must
advice individual to be careful with their stuff and avoid sharing information to other
people. Government must put in and submit a law about it, treating it as a serious crime
with huge penalty and longer imprisonment in order to threaten hackers. Also, those
who practice hacking whether with good or bad intention must be mitigated; instead
creator of applications and companies should put much more security, making it a lot
more harder to hack an account and investing in something that can detect potential
hackers and / or identifies weak points in information provided including wrong entry of
password.

The Philippines as a developing country still has a long way to go in terms of

perfecting the use and maintenance of internet services. For instance, in the initial years
of online banking, hackers were able to enter into personal accounts of depositors and
withdraw unauthorized amounts. Tighter security measures had to be implemented to
ensure that only account owners were able to access and transact using his personal
account.

However, with continuous research and development on online services technology, I

believe that tighter security systems can be developed and installed to protect computer
databases and systems. With more stringent security codes and more comprehensive
security systems from both the hardware and software sides, databases can be further
protected from unauthorized use and manipulation.

To end, we are all aware that illegal hackers can give a very damaging effect on
any kind of industry in this technological generation. So, we can assume that our high
advancement to technologies also heighten the risks of manipulated information.
Information which is the one of the most important asset, next to people (Turban &
Volonio, 2011). Therefore, Information security is a huge challenge in this day and age.