Top hackers of the entire era
1-Jonathan James:
James gained
notoriety when he became the first juvenile to be sent to prison for hacking.
He was sentenced at 16 years old. In an anonymous PBS interview, he professes,
"I was just looking around, playing around. What was fun for me was a
challenge to see what I could pull off." The DTRA is an agency of the
Department of Defense charged with reducing the threat to the U.S. and its
allies from nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional and special weapons. James
also cracked into NASA computers, stealing software worth approximately $1.7
million. if James, also known as "c0mrade," had been an adult he
likely would have served at least 10 years.
2-Kevin Mitnick:
A self-proclaimed
"hacker poster boy," Mitnick went through a highly publicized pursuit
by authorities. His mischief was hyped by the media but his actual offenses may
be less notable than his notoriety suggests. The Department of Justice
describes him as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States
history." His exploits were detailed in two movies: Freedom Downtime and
Takedown. Mitnick had a bit of hacking experience before committing the
offenses that made him . Then, like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, dabbled in
phone phreaking.
oday, Mitnick has been able to move past his role as a black
hat hacker and become a productive member of society. He served five years,
about 8 months of it in solitary confinement, and is now a computer security consultant,
author and speaker.
3-Robert Tappan Morris:
Morris, son of former National Security Agency scientist
Robert Morris, is known as the creator of the Morris Worm, the first computer
worm to be unleashed on the Internet. As a result of this crime, he was the
first person prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
4-Stephen Wozniak:
"Woz" is
famous for being the "other Steve" of Apple. Wozniak, along with
current Apple CEO Steve Jobs, co-founded Apple Computer. He has been awarded
with the National Medal of Technology as well as honorary doctorates from
Kettering University and Nova Southeastern University. Additionally, Woz was
inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in September 2000.
5-Tim Berners-Lee:
Berners-Lee is famed
as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the system that we use to access sites,
documents and files on the Internet. He has received numerous recognitions,
most notably the Millennium Technology Prize
6-Linus Torvalds:
Torvalds fathered
Linux, the very popular Unix-based operating system. He calls himself "an
engineer," and has said that his aspirations are simple, "I just want
to have fun making the best damn operating system I can."
Post a Comment