Major Hacks
Some of the major hacks that have been committed have been done by young teens aged between 14 and 18. These computer geniuses as they are known have expert knowledge on what they are doing and also know the consequences. Though the consequences do not really enter their mind they are doing it.
This hack occurred on February 14, 1997 Portuguese hackers launched a political attack on the web page of the Indonesian government, focusing on that country's continued oppression of East Timor. The attack was online for about 3 hours from 7.00 PM to 10.00 PM (Portuguese time) at the web site of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia. The hackers did not delete or change anything. The said "We just hack pages".
Another major hack that occurred was on April 1 1981 by a single user. This hacker who was situated in an east coast breakage house was interested in the stock market. So he purchased $100,000 worth of shares in the stock market. Then he hacked into the stock market main computers and stole $80 million dollars. The hacker was eventually caught although $53 million dollars was not recovered.
On Wednesday, March 5 1997 the home page of the national Aeronautics and Space Administration's was recently hacked and the contents changed by the group known as H4G1S. This group of hackers managed to change the contents of the webpage and left a little message for all. It said "Gr331ngs fr0m th3 m3mb3rs of H4G1S. Our mission is to continue where our colleagues the ILF off. During the next month, we the members of H4G1S will be launching an attack on corporate America. All who profit from the misuse of the Internet will fall victim to our upcoming reign of digital terrorism. Our privileged and highly skilled members will stop at nothing until our presence is felt nationwide. Even your most sophisticated firewalls are useless. We will demonstrate this in the upcoming weeks".
The homepage of the United States Air Force was recently hacked and the contents had been changed. The webpage had been changed completely as the hackers had inserted pornographic pictures saying "this is what we are doing to you" and had under the image "screwing you". The hackers have changed it and shown their views on the political system.
One other major hack which was committed was by a 16 year old boy in Europe. This boy hacked into the British Air Force and downloaded confidential information on Ballistic missiles. The boy hacked into the site and down loaded this information because he was interested and wanted to know more about them. This boy was fined a sum of money.
Hacking: A hacker is someone involved in computer security or insecurity, specializing in the discovery of exploits in system or in obtaining or preventing unauthorized access to the system, through skills, tactics and detailed knowledge.
Cracking: To copy software illegally by breaking (cracking) the various copy protection and registration technique being used.
