hacker

Who Is A Hacker? Mark Zuckerberg Explains In His Letter From The Past

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A person who want to do impossible things in a clever way.

Mark Zuckerberg

Short Bytes: The word hacker has been viewed with a bad filter that hackers always break into people’s computers. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, hacking is an approach to doing things quickly and testing their limits. Hacking is an active discipline, and one should focus on the quick implementation of ideas.

The term ‘hacker’ has always been viewed in a negative context among the general public. The contribution of the media can’t be denied in portraying a hacker as a person who does evil things. Recently, I came across the Founder’s Letter, 2012 which Mark Zuckerberg shared on his timeline. 2012 was the year when Facebook went public.

 Zuckerberg also acknowledges the fact that the term hacker has an “unfairly negative connotation” from being tagged as a person who trespasses into people’s machines.

“In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done,” Zuckerberg said.

“Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.”

The understanding of the word ‘hacker’ has changed from being an isolated guy — sitting on a computer, sneaking into people’s lives or stealing confidential data — to the one trying to get things done quickly and efficiently.

According to Zuckerberg, hacking is an “inherently hands-on and active discipline.” Hackers will first build a prototype of an idea to see if it works rather than figuring out its success possibilities. They focus on chunks, working on smaller iterations. Eventually, product or service becomes better over time. And to do that, Facebook has a testing framework where thousands of Facebook versions can be checked at a given time.

Another hacker trait is an “extremely open and meritocratic” mindset. The attention should be paid to the outcome, the idea, instead of the people who gave it. Facebook conducts hackathons to nourish this open thinking.

The different prototype ideas submitted during hackathons are collectively looked upon. Various popular products like the timeline, chat, videos, HipHop, etc. sprung out of such internal brainstorming events.

All of that said can be assumed as one positive picture of a hacker. As far as the negative versions are concerned, some people feel more comfortable calling them crackers. The hacker culture Zuckerberg believes has been in existence for the last few decades.

The hacker culture Zuckerberg believes has been in existence for a long time, largely been associated with computer programming. We can smell the existence of the hacker culture since the 1960s when a series of practical jokes happened at MIT.

People calling themselves hackers try to demonstrate their intellectual capabilities through their activities having some hack value. And it includes doing what other people think is impossible.

As far as the definition is concerned, the Jargon File documents it as “A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and stretching their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.”

Also known as the hacker’s dictionary, the jargon file can’t be thought of as some official glossary for tech terms but has had its own level of influence since it came into existence.

Your phone number is all a hacker needs to read texts, listen to calls and track you.

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Weaknesses within mobile phone network interconnection system allows criminals or governments to remotely snoop on anyone with a phone

German security expert Karsten Nohl demonstrated the hack by tracking a brand new phone given to US congressman Ted Lieu using only its phone number.
German security expert Karsten Nohl demonstrated the hack by tracking a brand new phone given to US congressman Ted Lieu using only its phone number. 
Hackers have again demonstrated that no matter how many security precautions someone takes, all a hacker needs to track their location and snoop on their phone calls and texts is their phone number.

The hack, first demonstrated by German security researcher Karsten Nohl in 2014 at a hacker convention in Hamburg, has been shown to still be active by Nohl over a year later for CBS’s 60 Minutes.

The hack uses the network interchange service called Signalling System No. 7(SS7), also known as C7 in the UK or CCSS7 in the US, which acts as a broker between mobile phone networks. When calls or text messages are made across networks SS7 handles details such as number translation, SMS transfer, billing and other back-end duties that connect one network or caller to another.

By hacking into or otherwise gaining access to the SS7 system, an attacker can track a person’s location based on mobile phone mast triangulation, read their sent and received text messages, and log, record and listen into their phone calls, simply by using their phone number as an identifier.

Nohl, who is currently conducting vulnerability analysis of SS7 for several international mobile phone networks, demonstrated the hack for the CBS show. He tracked a brand new phone given to US congressman Ted Lieu in California from his base in Berlin using only its phone number. Nohl pinpointed Lieu’s movements down to districts within Los Angeles, read his messages and recorded phone calls between Lieu and his staff.

The biggest issue for consumers is that there is little they can do to safeguard against this kind of snooping, short of turning off their mobile phone, as the attack happens on the network side, regardless of the phone used.

Nohl said: “The mobile network is independent from the little GPS chip in your phone, it knows where you are. So any choices that a congressman could’ve made, choosing a phone, choosing a pin number, installing or not installing certain apps, have no influence over what we are showing because this is targeting the mobile network. That, of course, is not controlled by any one customer.”

Hackers have proven that they can break into SS7, but security services, including the US National Security Agency, are also thought to use the system to track and snoop on target users.