med Dark Fiber, described his hobby as the result of ôpurely intellectual interest on my part.ö In his day, Dark Fiber has acquired some very valuable information, such as a guide to New York City's MetroCard electronic fare collection system. But he would never sell it. ôA true hacker never does that. One of the overriding tenets of hackerdom is that information wants to be free, and a lot of us take that very seriously.ö Where do hackers draw the line? For Dark Fiber, that is a matter of conscience for each individual hacker (Platt, 1996, pp. 48-50).
Hackers also access computer networks to hide their identities while they traffic in objectionable material. One such case involved the U.S. Air Force base at Langley, Virginia. In 1997, hackers invaded the base's e-mail system, then used it to distribute 800 files of pornography and hate mail to America Online everyday. By all appearances, the material came from the Air Force (Vizard, 1999, pp. 82-84).
Money motivates the second group of hackers. Called ôcrackers,ö or criminal hackers, they break in for profit. Once inside the network, they manipulate the system to win contests or steal money electronically (Koerner, 1999, pp. 46-47). For example, in 1994 and 1995, a biochemistry grad student in New York City named Vladimir Levin used Citibank's electronic funds transfer system to move $10 million from a legitimate account to one that Levin had set up in Finland (Platt, 1996, p. 50). On a smaller scale, crackers also access information such as credit reports and credit card numbers, leading to fraud and ôidentity theftö (Koerner, 1999, pp. 46-47).
The third group hacks for espionage, either on behalf of businesses or on behalf of foreign governments. They break into computer networks to steal information or simply to damage the network, thus harming a rival. Though these hackers have received far less attention, they are far more dangerous in the eyes of...