Hacking: a dangerous double-sword

In computer science, hacking is a behavior to gain unauthorized access to data or system which is help by another people or organization. And hacker is the name for these people who are good at hacking. Sometimes hackers are esteemed as fighter to challenge monopoly while sometimes they are accused of crime. In my opinion, hacking is a double-sword; it could be used as a workaround for solving some problems, while many hacking behaviors are dangerous or even illegal, and should not be encouraged.

Many computer geeks are keen on hiking and take it as a spirit to challenge monopoly. One example is the popular “jailbreak” kits for Apple’s mobile operation system iOS. Since Apple’s iOS restrict iPad and iPhone users to use APP only bought from Apple’s store, many people don’t like this monopolistic like behavior and some of them took great efforts to hack the iOS system and developed a more open software environment freely for other users to let them download App not only from Apple store, but also from some unauthorized sources. After long term lawsuit, this hacking behavior is now taken to be legal in U.S.A. and has benefited many people. However, it might not be taken as a standard way to solve such kind of problems. Jailbreak iOS did give user more freedom while also brought with security issues and service issues. More malwares are easily to be installed on these jailbreak devices since they are not authorized by Apple. And Apple will not provide service to the problems caused by jailbreak. 

Reference from: http://www.dazeinfo.com/2012/02/02/apple-ios-jailbreaking-is-it-fair-for-the-company-study/

Hacking also has its dark side. Hacking bank’s computer systems and use other people’s credit card information stored in bank server to make personal benefit is the same as robbing a bank. Many people are doing similar hacking to illegally obtain other people’s private information due to profit purpose. These hacking behaviors should be accused of crime and will not be permitted. Even the purpose of hacking behaviors is not for personal profit, releasing private data of other people or organization to public without authorization could be a very dangerous behavior. A tragedy happened to Aaron Swartz is a warning for all of these hackers. Based on the purpose to make knowledge freely open to public, Swartz hacked MIT network in 2010 and downloaded nearly 5 million articles from JSTOR, one of famous digital archives of scholarly journals in the world and then put all these paper online for public free access. Many people adore him as a fighter to knowledge monopoly while the lawsuits against him finally pushed Swartz to commit suicide. Although I highly respect Aaron’s good wish, I don’t think such kind of hacking should be encouraged anymore. We should find a better way to achieve the same purpose without hacking.