Hackers

ever seen on tv or maybe in a movie, where a guy will walk into a cafe or some pubic place. dressed as an average guy with a laptop, and out of no where begin to type furiously on his computer and all of the sudden be in the CIA computer database. well for some reason, one that i can not explain, i have always wanted to be that person. be the person who can do so many things with his computer like hack into government site and do everything of his computer, and the best part NEVER GET CAUGHT. just the things these incredibly intelligent people can do with a simple computer just amazes me. i just this article about a kid, who was able to do all of this. Jonathan James is the next hacker on the list of the top five “black hat” hackers. One of the reasons James is particularly special is because he is the first juvenile to be sent to prison for hacking. James in an anonymous interview done by PBS, he reported that his action weren’t meant to hurt anyone or thing but just to see what he was capable of doing. A couple of the hacks James is most noted for is, hacking into the Department Threat Reduction Agency. The Agency is a branch of the Department of Defense and is in charge of trying to reduce the threat of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to the U.S and to its allies. While hacking into the Department he created a backdoor into their severs, allowing him to frequently enter and exit them as he pleases. It also allowed him to view highly confidential emails and also take employee usernames and passwords, giving him almost full access to their information. Another hack James is infamous for, is for cracking into NASA computers. While in NASA computers, James stole software worth approximately 1.7 million dollars. The Department of Justice later stated that the software stolen controlled the living area of the International Space Station, including its temperature, humidity, and all other physical aspects of the station. Once finding out about the problems, NASA was forced to shut down all of its computer systems costing NASA around $41,000. James also later stated, once he was caught, that the code of the software he downloaded was originally a “crappy” code and was in no way worth the 1.7 million dollars that NASA reportedly stated. Even though James had hacked into NASA and the Department Threat Reduction Agency, he did not sever a heavy sentence. He was only banned for the use of the computer for recreational uses and had to sever six month under house arrest. Even though, James was sixteen at the time, if he had been an adult, he could have easily been sentenced to ten years in prison for his intrusions of government property. James still spent six months in prison because he violated his parole. Today, James says he has learned his lesson, and will not do it again, and also plans to start a computer security company. See this right here amazes me.