Two years ago, when Keren Elazari asked her audience at a talk in London to connect their mobile phones to the same wireless network, many took up the challenge. Within minutes, the Israeli network security expert was able to access the websites they had opened.
Next Saturday, she does not intend to do the same experiment with the audience of the TEDx Academy in Athens. However, in her speech, she will defend the contribution of hackers in highlighting the pitfalls of the Internet. As she has argued herself: "Hackers do not only cause destruction. They can offer more.".
"They are the immune system of the Internet. We need them," says Keren Elazari in a phone conversation from Israel. "They can highlight the gaps and imperfections of systems, help improve the technology," she adds.
Ms. Elazari is an analyst at GigaOM, closely following developments in the global hacker community and researching cyberspace conflicts and politics at Tel Aviv University. She took her first steps as a hacker in 1995. She no longer calls herself that. “I haven’t published anything recently. I haven’t been actively involved in hacking since I completed my military service in Israel, and for ten years in total. I try not to break the law. I just want to tell their stories,” she says.
Ms. Elazari admits that there are criminals in the hacker community: malicious users of technology who try to steal credit card passwords or spread viruses to other computers. She also acknowledges that hackers – even those with honest intentions – are not bound by rules and restrictions. “Hackers exist and operate in a world without rules. The only thing that can limit them is the technical obstacles they encounter in their path,” she says. She herself has been a target. As she says, a few years ago there was an attempted Denial of Service Attack on her computer. But she managed to prevent it and identify the perpetrator. It was a hacker in Indonesia. “If he insisted, I was ready to send him a message. I had found all his details. In the end, he didn’t bother me again,” she says.
In contrast to malicious hackers (also known as black hats in the online community), Ms. Elazari contrasts the examples of other hackers, such as those who participate in bug bounty programs. Facebook and other large companies organize competitions every year offering money to hackers who will point out problems in their networks. “These companies understand that even if they have a thousand employees monitoring their code, there will always be a possibility that not all the holes in their system will be discovered,” says the Israeli expert.
From time to time, Ms. Elazari also communicates with Greek hackers. However, she only knows them through their pseudonyms. The profile of honest hackers that she outlines corresponds to the case of the Greek student who was arrested in early 2000 for hacking into the system of the National Research Foundation. Within a few months, the young man was completely acquitted of all charges by a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court.
The excerpt from the acquittal decree of that period is indicative: "Such goals and corresponding abilities constitute elements to reward these young individuals who undertake such efforts and offer our country expertise that is necessary under the new circumstances.".
Source: kathimerini.gr
