Most Dangerous Hacker In The World.
Once upon a time, the most notorious hackers out there were individual actors, and if you didn’t know their true name, at least you had some clever handle that made it easy to identify them when they wanted to take credit for something. A hacker calling themselves Solo or the Iceman is an adversary your can really visualize. Even when hackers teamed up in the past they would give their group a cool nickname: Lizard Squad, TeslaTeam, or the Cult of the Dead Cow.
important or not so important, is saved on a computer. This computer, in
turn, is connected with every other computer on the planet through a
complex web of networks. Security of our data on the computer is always
been a raging debate with many a people trying to steal data by hacking
into systems.
Think again. There are skilled and secretive hackers out there who could
get past pretty much anything you choose to put in their way. Not only
are these hackers fiendishly clever, they are also inventive and
constantly invent new ways of getting past security protocols. Whatever
you and your server do to protect yourselves, the hackers are always one
step ahead. Be happy then that the most skilled of them choose to
concentrate on draining millions from banks or discovering government
secrets rather than sending your friends messages pretending to be you.
Discover more in our Top 5 Most Dangerous Hackers.
5. Kevin Mitnick
We often watch movies showing hackers
doing insane things on their computers, law enforcement agencies chasing
them down and the news media covering every bit of it. Kevin Mitnick’s story is quite similar to any Hollywood Hacking Movie. At the time of his arrest, he was the most wanted person in relation to computer crimes.
His first brush with hacking came about
when he learnt the concept of social engineering and learnt of a system
to bypass the punch card system on the L.A. bus. At the age of 16, he
hacked into various computer systems and copying softwars, an allegation
for which he was charged 9 years later in 1988. Having made to serve
twelve months in prison and three years of supervised release, Mitnick
continued to hack into various systems for which fresh charges were
framed against him. Mitnick fled and was on the run for more than two
and a half years using cloned cell phones to hide his location. Mitnick
was finally arrested in 1995 and sent to prison for 4 years in 1999.
Mitnick first gained unauthorized access to a computer network in 1979, at 16, when a friend gave him the phone number for the Ark, the computer system Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software.[16] He broke into DEC's computer network and copied their software, a crime for which he was charged and convicted in 1988. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Near the end of his supervised release, Mitnick hacked into Pacific Bell voice mail computers. After a warrant was issued for his arrest, Mitnick fled, becoming a fugitive for two and a half years.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Mitnick gained unauthorized access to dozens of computer networks while he was a fugitive. He used cloned cellular phones to hide his location and, among other things, copied valuable proprietary software from some of the country's largest cellular telephone and computer companies. Mitnick also intercepted and stole computer passwords, altered computer networks, and broke into and read private e-mails.
Arrest, conviction, and incarceration
Supporters from 2600 Magazine distributed "Free Kevin" bumper stickers
Mitnick was charged with wire fraud (14 counts), possession of unauthorized access devices (8 counts), interception of wire or electronic communications, unauthorized access to a federal computer, and causing damage to a computer.[3]
In 1999, Mitnick pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication, as part of a plea agreement before the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison plus 22 months for violating the terms of his 1989 supervised release sentence for computer fraud. He admitted to violating the terms of supervised release by hacking into Pacific Bell voicemail and other systems and to associating with known computer hackers, in this case co-defendant Lewis De Payne.[1][20]
Mitnick served five years in prison—four and a half years pre-trial and eight months in solitary confinement—because, according to Mitnick, law enforcement officials convinced a judge that he had the ability to "start a nuclear war by whistling into a pay phone",[21] meaning that law enforcement told the judge that he could somehow dial into the NORAD modem via a payphone from prison and communicate with the modem by whistling to launch nuclear missiles.[22] In addition, a number of media outlets reported on the unavailability of Kosher meals at the prison where he was incarcerated.[23]
4. Kevin Poulsen
Sometimes hackers can appear perfectly innocuous in their day-to-day lives. Take Kevin Poulsen, who is now News Editor for wired.com – a popular and legitimate site favored by geeks. But he was once a black-hat hacker, pulling off such stunts as winning a Porsche 944 S2 from KIIS-FM by hacking their phone lines and guaranteeing he was the 102nd caller. Like other hackers, he has used his powers for the greater good by identifying MySpace users who were looking for child porn. But he also hacked into the FBI computers and ending up serving a 5-year sentence for his crimes. Since his release, he’s concentrated on his writing career not just at wired but also with his book “Kingpin”. A versatile and, it would seem, reformed hacker.
On June 1, 1990, he took over all of the telephone lines for Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM, guaranteeing that he would be the 102nd caller and win the prize of a Porsche 944 S2.
When the Federal Bureau of Investigation started pursuing Poulsen, he went underground as a fugitive. When he was featured on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries, the show's 1-800 telephone lines mysteriously crashed.
He was arrested, sentenced to five years in a federal penitentiary, as well as banned from using computers or the internet for 3 years after his release. He was the first American to be released from prison with a court sentence that banned him from using computers and the internet after his prison sentence. Although Chris Lamprecht was sentenced first with an internet ban on May 5, 1995, Poulsen was released from prison before Lamprecht and began serving his ban sentence earlier. (Poulsen's parole officer later allowed him to use the Internet in 2004, with certain monitoring restrictions)
3. Gary McKinnon
McKinnon’s place on the list is secured through less nefarious deeds than most of the others. Although there’s no question that the Scottish programmer and system administrator is a gifted and accomplished hacker, his motivations don’t immediately strike anyone as very threatening: most of his exploits were launched in a vain effort to obtain evidence of UFO activity and alien technologies he believed were being hidden by the American government.
But his activities in pursuit of those alleged truths were sobering: McKinnon was able to penetrate security systems in 97 different U.S. military and NASA computers in a 13-month period, deleting critical files in one case that completely shut down the Army’s Washington D.C. network for 24 hours. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, he broke into and deleted weapons logs at the Earle Naval Weapons station, throwing the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet into confusion even as it was mobilizing defenses.
For all that, McKinnon proved relatively easy to track down. U.K. authorities interviewed him and confiscated his computers on behalf of their U.S. counterparts in March 2002.
Extradition proceedings
McKinnon remained at liberty without restriction for three years until June 2005 (until after the UK enacted the Extradition Act 2003, which implemented the 2003 extradition treaty with the United States wherein the United States did not need to provide contestable evidence), when he became subject to bail conditions including a requirement to sign in at his local police station every evening and to remain at his home address at night.If extradited to the U.S. and charged, McKinnon would have faced up to 70 years in jail. He had also expressed fears that he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Appeal to the House of Lords
Representing McKinnon in the House of Lords on 16 June 2008, barristers told the Law Lords that the prosecutors had said McKinnon faced a possible 8–10 years in jail per count if he contested the charges (there were seven counts) without any chance of repatriation, but only 37–46 months if he co-operated and went voluntarily to the United States. U.S.-style plea bargains are not a part of English jurisprudence (although it is standard practice to reduce the sentence by one-third for a defendant who pleads guilty) and McKinnon's lawyers contended that in effect this was intimidation to force McKinnon to waive his legal rights. McKinnon also stated that he had been told that he could serve part of his sentence in the UK if he co-operated. He rejected the offer because the Americans would not guarantee these concessions.McKinnon's barrister said that the Law Lords could deny extradition if there was an abuse of process: "If the United States wish to use the processes of English courts to secure the extradition of an alleged offender, then they must play by our rules."
The House of Lords rejected this argument, with the lead judgement (of Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood) holding that "the difference between the American system and our own is not perhaps so stark as [McKinnon]'s argument suggests" and that extradition proceedings should "accommodate legal and cultural differences between the legal systems of the many foreign friendly states with whom the UK has entered into reciprocal extradition arrangements".
2. Jonathan James
Jonathan James has been
credited with being the first juvenile to be incarcerated for cybercime
in the United States. He was aged 16, when charged with hacking into the computer systems
of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a division of the Department of
Defense. He installed a backdoor into the DTRA server that allowed him
access to all forms of communication in and out of the computer system
and numerous usernames and passwords. He also hacked in the NASA systems
and stole softwares that controlled essential life sustaining equipment
on-board space ships.
James was later traced and arrested but
since he was a minor, faced six months of house arrest, probation till
he turned 18, made to apologise to all the departments that he hacked
into and was banned from using a computer for recreational use.
In 2007, when the departmental store,
TJX reported a hack into their computer system and a compromise of
sensitive customer information, the Secret Service include Jonthan’s
name in the list of those believed to be a part of the act. Although no
evidence was found against Jonathan, he was still not dropped from the
list of suspects which led him to ultimately kill himself in 2008. His
suicide is believed to be caused due to tall the mental pressure he was
being made to undertake for a crime he believed he was never involved
in.
James was sentenced to seven months house arrest and probation until the age of eighteen, and was required to write letters of apology to NASA and the Department of Defense. He was also banned from using computers for recreational purposes.[8] James later violated that probation when he tested positive for drug use and was then subsequently taken into custody by the United States Marshals Service and flown to an Alabama federal correctional facility where he ultimately served six months.
Legal experts have suggested that, given the extent of his intrusions, he could have served at least ten years for his crimes if he had been an adult. Both Attorney General Janet Reno and prosecuting attorney Guy Lewis issued statements claiming the James case was proof the Justice Department was willing to get tough with juvenile offenders accused of cybercrime.
1. Jacob Appelbaum
Another hacker associated with WikiLeaks, this is a man with a troubled past. Given up for adoption by his parents he ended up in a children’s home and then later living with his heroin-addicted father and assorted other junkies. After such an unsettled childhood, he was encouraged to channel his energies into computing and he is now the American public face of WikiLeaks, a role that has seen him constantly detained and questioned at airports about his political views. He is also the spokesman for Tor technologies, which aid projects like WikiLeaks by diverting e-mails between several different countries. So an e-mail sent in America may go to three different servers before reaching Iraq, securing the location of both parties. Appelbaum has never convicted of hacking and now lives in Berlin but is obviously still considered a threat as he and his partner are apparently spied on as they sleep. Chilling…
On 25 May 2016, Appelbaum stepped down from his position at Tor; this was announced on 2 June by the non-profit in a terse statement.On 4 June, Shari Steele, the executive director of the Tor project, published a much longer statement, noting that although prior allegations of sexual abuse regarding Appelbaum were consistent with "rumors some of us had been hearing for some time," that "the most recent allegations are much more serious and concrete than anything we had heard previously."
Also on 4 June, a website appeared with anonymous accounts of mistreatment by Appelbaum.Security engineer Leigh Honeywell came forward on 7 June to publicly relate the website's stories with her relationship with Appelbaum, in which she described Appelbaum ignoring a safeword and becoming violent. On 15 June, Alison Macrina (the director of the Library Freedom Project) and Isis Agora Lovecruft publicly announced that the website's anonymous accounts of sexual abuse, under the pseudonyms of "Sam" and "Forest," respectively, were their own.
On 6 June, Appelbaum issued a statement denouncing the allegations as part of a concerted strategy to damage his reputation.
An anonymously leaked letter that the Tor Project's human resources manager had written to Appelbaum in conjunction with his March 2015 suspension for unprofessional conduct was published on 7 June.
In response to the allegations, the Cult of the Dead Cow ended their association with Appelbaum on 7 June, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation removed him from their volunteer technical advisory board on 8 June. Noisebridge announced on 10 June that co-founder Appelbaum had triggered their Anti-Harassment policy and is "no longer welcome in our community, either in its physical or online spaces,"and on 17 June the Chaos Computer Club announced that he was not welcome. On 18 June his status as a Debian GNU/Linux project developer was revoked. On 1 July Linux Australia barred Appelbaum from future events.
On 10 June, Jill Bähring, a woman whom three witnesses claimed to have seen being abused,[93] flatly denied the abuse allegations. In a statement released by Gizmodo journalist William Turton, Bähring wrote: "Reading this highly distorted version of my experience, which is being used as one of the 'bulletproof examples' of Jacob's alleged misbehavior, I can’t help but wonder. Wonder about all the stories that have been published the last days. Wonder not only about mob justice on twitter, caused by rumors and speculation, but also about the accounts repeated by those who call themselves journalists. Wonder about how many other stories have been willingly misinterpreted. Wonder about the witnesses in all these stories, who coincidentally always seem to consist of the same set of people. Wonder about their motive to speak on my behalf without my consent."
On 17 June 2016, activists, journalists and legal professionals supporting Appelbaum signed a document defending his right to due process, and deploring the story's treatment by social media.
In June 2016, Appelbaum's Berlin apartment was defaced in English and German with graffiti directly referencing the allegations.[105]
