Saturday, September 06, 2003

'Homeless hacker' may surrender to FBI | CNET News.com

'Homeless hacker' may surrender to FBI | CNET News.com

Super Highwaymen

The abundance of Internet Cafés is one of those social phenomena that absorbs loose parts of society. For example truants and runaways may spend the night playing war simulations through the night avoiding education. The staff can only shrug, what can they do? It is better these kids are not on the street.

Crime finds its dark corners to market and 24 hour establishments may be prime meeting places for those seeking to recruit criminal accomplices.

Criminal activity is like drug addiction, it spreads through the cultural development of the person emerging from their childhood whereas developing responsibility is part of our social order, promoting healthy interdependent relationships that allow peaceful enterprise.

It is of course a good thing to provide safe spaces where family can access high speed networks as it is natural to have a TV in the house. The Web Café is a smart environment to provide controlled access. Some 24 hour cafés become late night sweat parlours of virtual mayhem, then doss houses for game addicts and street people. They attract kids to inexpensive and overwhelming overnight meltdowns of gaming intensity.

All-night web cafés are like all-night pubs, a potential hazard to children who feel safe in the familiar environment of a game or chat room. Allowing open access to the internet to children and pedaphiles may allow the law to catch pedaphiles, but it is also tainting the internet medium as a sleazy environment.

That some internet client programs (the browser) can be turned into an anonymous attack monster that costs billions is a dangerous state of affairs. That the indigent or homeless, unfairly sacked and agressive, yet talented, and armed with with cheap and powerful web access plus a widespread operating system that allows passive terminals to be highjacked, is a risky state of affairs.

Kids with a hacking competence and a total disregard for consequences play pranks. Some of these pranks are more calculated and effective than others. Cars can also be used to create chaos, but the risk to damage to the self prevents this being a common method of revenge against the world. Hacking provides an armchair opportunity for world fame and notoriety.

The dominance of one world power over all others, whether it be in politics or operating systems, may be seen to be a grave evolutionary mistake.

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