Speaker 1: Welcome curious minds to another deep dive. Today. We're pulling
Speaker 1: back the curtain on a topic often shrouded in mystery
Speaker 1: and well a lot of misconception. Hackers. Yeah, definitely forget
Speaker 1: the movie stereotypes for just a moment, because we're going
Speaker 1: way beyond those surface level ideas to you uncover who's
Speaker 1: really behind the screen.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and we've got some really fascinating sources today. There
Speaker 2: are excerpts from this pioneering study called Profiling Hackers. The
Speaker 2: science of criminal profiling as applied to it looks at
Speaker 2: this underground world with a pretty unique blend of technical
Speaker 2: and psychological analysis.
Speaker 1: Right, So, our mission for you today is basically to
Speaker 1: unpack what truly motivates these individuals, how they operate, and importantly,
Speaker 1: what their complex world means for all of us in
Speaker 1: our increasingly digital lives.
Speaker 2: Think of it as a shortcut maybe to understanding the
Speaker 2: who and the why behind the code.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's dig into this then, because when we hear
Speaker 1: criminal profiling, I think, you know, our minds often jump
Speaker 1: to a very specific image maybe Silence of the Lambs, right.
Speaker 3: The movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the roots of this science they go way
Speaker 1: deeper and twist in some surprising ways, especially when you
Speaker 1: try to apply it to the digital world.
Speaker 2: It's really fascinating how far back it goes. You can
Speaker 2: actually trace some of it back to believe it or not.
Speaker 2: Eighteen eighty eight, London.
Speaker 1: Wow, eighteen eighty eight. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Doctor Thomas Bond, he was a professor of forensic medicine,
Speaker 2: did an autopsy on a Jack the Ripper victim. And
Speaker 2: he didn't just do the autopsy, he assessed the attacker's
Speaker 2: surgical skills, even offered like an interpretation of the murderer's
Speaker 2: behavior based on their methods.
Speaker 1: So an early kind of profiling.
Speaker 2: Right there, exactly, an early form.
Speaker 1: Incredible. So okay, from those very early beginnings, when did
Speaker 1: it start to get more formalized like the FBI profiling
Speaker 1: we hear about.
Speaker 2: That really took shape much later in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, AUCA. Right, Yeah, special
Speaker 2: agents like Howard Teton and Patrick Mulaney. They kicked off
Speaker 2: this applied criminology program that eventually led to the Behavioral
Speaker 2: Sciences Unit, the BSU.
Speaker 1: The famous BSU, that's the one.
Speaker 2: And then later you had John Douglas and Robert Wrestler
Speaker 2: interviewing convicted serial killers. That work led them to develop
Speaker 2: the organized disorganized model, which is actually still influential today.
Speaker 1: And that model looks at things like intelligence, social skills.
Speaker 2: Planning exactly, things like the level of planning, intelligence levels,
Speaker 2: social adequacy, employment types. It helps make sense of the
Speaker 2: crime scene and the kind of person behind it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense for you know, a physical crime scene,
Speaker 1: but how on earth do you apply that kind of
Speaker 1: thinking to cyberspace Hacking doesn't really fit the typical violent
Speaker 1: crime mold.
Speaker 2: That is the core challenge, isn't it. Traditionally profiling focuses
Speaker 2: on violent crimes, sexually related crime, serial crimes. Hacking, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't fit neatly.
Speaker 1: So how do you bridge that gap?
Speaker 2: Well, the key thing is the serial nature of computer attacks.
Speaker 2: It's often a habitual crime, repeated behavior.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, the repetition.
Speaker 2: Yes, that repetition allows us to identify constants and behavior,
Speaker 2: which is fundamental to any kind of profiling.
Speaker 1: But here's where it gets really really interesting. I think
Speaker 1: the crime scene itself is just completely.
Speaker 3: Different, totally different.
Speaker 1: It's not a physical place. You don't have fingerprints or DNA. Nope,
Speaker 1: it's all electronic abstraction. Right, You're relying entirely on analyzing
Speaker 1: log files and audit trails.
Speaker 3: That's your evidence. Logs and trails and.
Speaker 1: Things like traditional geographical profiling, the marauder versus commuter models,
Speaker 1: they just.
Speaker 2: Don't apply, not at all, because, like our sources point out,
Speaker 2: in cyberspace, distance doesn't really exist. Everything is, as they
Speaker 2: put it, a mouse breadth.
Speaker 1: Away a mouse breadth. I like that. So this is
Speaker 1: a huge question. How do you profile something so abstract?
Speaker 2: Well, the answer really needs a joint approach. You need
Speaker 2: the computer security experts to tell you the what and
Speaker 2: the how, what happened, how they got in the technical side, right,
Speaker 2: and then you need the criminal profiling skills to explain
Speaker 2: the why, why did the attack happen, and crucially what
Speaker 2: kind of attacker are we likely dealing with.
Speaker 1: So it's a combination of tech know how and behavioral
Speaker 1: science exactly.
Speaker 2: That dual perspective is absolutely crucial to get the full picture.
Speaker 1: Which makes perfect sense. Then why the Hacker's Profiling Project
Speaker 1: the HPP was started back in two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: It's described as like a first big step in really
Speaker 1: understanding this huge underground world of hacking, trying to sort
Speaker 1: out the different categories of hackers and you know, actual
Speaker 1: criminal attackers.
Speaker 3: And their approach was unique, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. They went directly to the source, focusing not
Speaker 1: on the how, but the why and the who. They
Speaker 1: even to use things called honeynets.
Speaker 3: Ah, the honeypots, bait.
Speaker 1: Systems exactly deliberately unprotected systems set up as bait basically
Speaker 1: to watch attacks happen live and gather data on how
Speaker 1: hackers actually.
Speaker 2: Behave smart So to really get a handle on hackers,
Speaker 2: it probably helps to look at how cybercrime itself has evolved,
Speaker 2: even how we think about crime has changed. Oh so well,
Speaker 2: Historically you had figures like Cesara Lombroso back in the
Speaker 2: late nineteenth century. He saw fraud as a kind of
Speaker 2: civilized metamorphosis of crime.
Speaker 1: Civilized metamorphosis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like replacing primitive cruelty with lies and greed, a
Speaker 2: more advanced way to be criminal, I suppose.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Then later Edward Sutherland came along and really challenged that
Speaker 2: he defined white collar crime offenses by respectable, high status
Speaker 2: people in their jobs, implying, you know, a breach of trust.
Speaker 1: Ah, the breach of trust angle that seems key for
Speaker 1: digital stuff too.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, this evolution in understanding crime from brute force to
Speaker 2: subtle deception and violating trust, it really sets the stage
Speaker 2: for how we profile digital offenses and.
Speaker 1: That white collar crime idea. It translates surprisingly well to
Speaker 1: the digital age, doesn't it. Our sources point out that
Speaker 1: even say, some big telecommunications companies can be offenders, not
Speaker 1: just victims.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely Yeah, taking over illegal markets for personal data,
Speaker 2: maybe using data for really invasive marketing campaigns.
Speaker 3: That blurs the line.
Speaker 1: And the Internet just changed everything completely.
Speaker 2: Think about it. Phishing, massive credit card fraud, identity theft viruses.
Speaker 2: None of that really existed before the Internet became widespread
Speaker 2: and the user base shifted dramatically. Early IT users, they
Speaker 2: were relatively few and pre technically aware.
Speaker 1: They knew the risks debate.
Speaker 2: Today's users are as, the sources say, legion huge numbers,
Speaker 2: and many are unfamiliar with the jargon the attack techniques.
Speaker 2: They're vulnerable to misleading media hype too, So.
Speaker 1: An unaware target is basically de facto unprotected.
Speaker 2: That's how the sources put it. If you don't know
Speaker 2: the danger, you can't defend against it.
Speaker 1: It's also really interesting how digital theft is just fundamentally different.
Speaker 1: When someone steals a file online, it's not gone, is it. No,
Speaker 1: it's just copied, it's still there, Yeah, which makes detection
Speaker 1: incredibly hard, often really delayed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like those big incidents with the Windows NT source
Speaker 2: code or the Cisco router code being stolen. The companies
Speaker 2: might not even know for ages exactly.
Speaker 1: And as the reasons why people did this stuff evolved,
Speaker 1: the way we talk about them.
Speaker 3: Changed too, right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: You know. Back in the nineteen eighties, digital crimes were
Speaker 2: often just about destruction, wiping data, that.
Speaker 1: Sort of thing. Cure vandalism almost pretty much.
Speaker 2: But then in the nineteen nineties you got these intelligent,
Speaker 2: self replicating viruses, things like I Love You or Veronica.
Speaker 1: Oh, I remember those.
Speaker 2: They were huge, news huge, and with those the main
Speaker 2: objectives seemed to shift. It became more about attacker, notoriety,
Speaker 2: getting your name out there, making a splash, and.
Speaker 1: The terms we use change too. Hacker didn't always mean
Speaker 1: bad guy, not at all.
Speaker 2: Initially, hacker just meant like a computer enthusiast, someone who
Speaker 2: loved figuring things out, tinkerers exactly, But by the early eighties,
Speaker 2: you had younger programmers using those skills for more harmful things,
Speaker 2: breaking into military systems, writing viruses.
Speaker 1: So the meaning soured.
Speaker 2: It did, the term took on a negative con and
Speaker 2: that's when the term cracker was coined specifically to distinguish
Speaker 2: people using skills maliciously hacker versus cracker.
Speaker 1: You got it. So our sources also categorize these individuals
Speaker 1: right using colors, Yeah.
Speaker 2: The colors of the underground. It helps give a clearer
Speaker 2: picture of the different motivations and roles.
Speaker 1: Okay, break it down for us, all right.
Speaker 2: First you have the black hats. These are the folks
Speaker 2: who violate systems, often for personal game. They definitely cross
Speaker 2: the line into criminal acts for them stealing information, selling
Speaker 2: it that's just business.
Speaker 1: Sounds straightforwardly criminal it is.
Speaker 2: And what's particularly dangerous, the sources note is there are
Speaker 2: even legal black hackers, people who work on commission, maybe
Speaker 2: move to a country where destroying a specific system isn't
Speaker 2: technically illegal there and then do the damage.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that's insidious. What's next?
Speaker 3: Then you have the gray hats.
Speaker 2: They often call themselves ethical hackers, sometimes ironically pink hats.
Speaker 2: They don't really want the black or white label.
Speaker 1: So somewhere in the middle kind of.
Speaker 2: They might have done an intrusions in the past, but
Speaker 2: maybe they've moved away from that. This group includes skill testers,
Speaker 2: people who find exploits create viruses, but don't necessarily see
Speaker 2: it as wrong. What's the motivation then, often targeting OS writers,
Speaker 2: maybe for security breaches they haven't fixed, and they can
Speaker 2: be volatile. They might switch sides if they feel ignored
Speaker 2: or aren't given credit for finding a flaw.
Speaker 1: Interesting and the white hats.
Speaker 3: White hats are the hunters.
Speaker 2: They use their skills explicitly for good cooperating with authorities,
Speaker 2: working as security consultants, trying to strengthen defenses.
Speaker 1: The good guys essentially okay, but they're less sophisticated groups too, right,
Speaker 1: often younger.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely there are the wannabe lamers. Our sources call
Speaker 2: this category amusing, which maybe is a bit harsh, but
Speaker 2: I do. You'd find them on like low profile forums
Speaker 2: publicly asking really basic questions. Yo, man was the b
Speaker 2: thirst Way teaser.
Speaker 3: Hack www dot Nasa dot gov.
Speaker 2: Things that show they don't really know what they' doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so mostly harmless, maybe.
Speaker 2: Mostly annoying probably, But then you have script kitties. These
Speaker 2: are described as culturally advanced compared to the wannabes, but
Speaker 2: actually dangerous to systems.
Speaker 1: How so, if they're not super skilled.
Speaker 2: They use tools developed by others, stuff found on places
Speaker 2: like bug track mailing lists. Those are forms where vulnerabilities
Speaker 2: get discussed.
Speaker 1: Ah, so they don't need deep knowledge themselves exactly.
Speaker 2: They just use the tools to break in, often just
Speaker 2: to brag about it. They get called point and clickers
Speaker 2: because the attacks involve very little reasoning or study, just
Speaker 2: running a program someone else wrote.
Speaker 1: Still dangerous though, oh absolutely.
Speaker 2: Then beyond those you get into the more professional, specialized
Speaker 2: categories like who well, cyber warriors. These folks keep a
Speaker 2: really low profile. They might target less obvious systems, ISPs, universities,
Speaker 2: and they operate either for money or.
Speaker 3: Based on strong ideals.
Speaker 2: Okay, industrial spies highly skilled, purely motivated by money. Our
Speaker 2: sources say this category has seen an x spinal increase.
Speaker 1: Wow, and that includes insiders too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, often includes insiders employees illegally accessing sensitive company info
Speaker 2: for personal gain.
Speaker 1: That's a huge threat definitely.
Speaker 2: Then you have government agents. Often these are actually former hackers.
Speaker 1: Really government's hire hackers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, employed for espionage, counter espionage, monitoring other governments, individuals,
Speaker 2: strategic industries. This marriage between hacking and intelligence agencies goes
Speaker 2: back to the mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Apparently fascinating.
Speaker 2: And the last category military hackers. These are professional hackers
Speaker 2: working directly within a country's armed forces, ordered to hack
Speaker 2: as part of specific military strategies, fighting wars behind the
Speaker 2: scenes in the digital realm.
Speaker 1: It's a whole hidden battlefield. So with all these different
Speaker 1: types black hats, gray hats, script kitties, government agents, what
Speaker 1: do our sources say really drives them psychologically? I mean,
Speaker 1: beyond the stereotypes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the million dollar question, isn't it. The media
Speaker 2: image is often way off. Our sources point to this
Speaker 2: really important historical document, the Hacker Manifesto, written by someone
Speaker 2: called the Mentor back in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: The Hacker Manifesto. What does it say?
Speaker 2: It really reveals a core part of the hacker identity,
Speaker 2: this constant search for challenges, a passion for breaking limits
Speaker 2: that seem.
Speaker 1: Impossible, pushing boundaries exactly.
Speaker 2: But it also expresses a lot of sort of adolescent
Speaker 2: anger and resentment towards the status quo towards adults, authority figures,
Speaker 2: feeling misunderstood, deeply misunderstood. Yeah, and because of that, many
Speaker 2: find this incredibly strong sense of belonging, this unconditional solidarity
Speaker 2: within the hacker community itself.
Speaker 1: That quest for challenge you mentioned, it sounds a lot
Speaker 1: like that psychological concept of flow.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely six on Mahale's idea of flow, that state
Speaker 2: where you're totally absorbed thoughts and feelings, working together, clear goals,
Speaker 2: skills matching the challenge, immediate feedback, and.
Speaker 1: It makes you want to tackle harder things.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it pushes into jewels to seek greater complexity, constantly
Speaker 2: increase their skills. That fits the hacker drive perfectly.
Speaker 1: So besides the challenge, what else motivates them?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: A huge one is just inquisitiveness, an inexhaustible thirst for knowledge,
Speaker 2: as the sources put it, curiosity, intense curiosity. Many see
Speaker 2: themselves almost like scientists, using computers as microscopes to understand
Speaker 2: how systems work, and crucially then sharing that knowledge.
Speaker 1: Sharing is key for many.
Speaker 2: Yes, they see the Internet as this inherently democratic tool,
Speaker 2: something that cuts across class, ethnicity, gender, skin color, a
Speaker 2: level playing.
Speaker 1: Field interesting any other motives?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for many, it's also just fun in games, the
Speaker 2: thrill of getting into a system, though interestingly they often
Speaker 2: get bored once they're inside unless they have a specific goal.
Speaker 1: Bored after breaking in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the challenge was getting in, and some apparently even
Speaker 2: get a thrill from the idea of getting caught.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, risk takers.
Speaker 2: Definitely and another powerful driver, especially for maybe the gray
Speaker 2: or way hats, is this idea of fighting for freedom
Speaker 2: and making the.
Speaker 3: PC world safer.
Speaker 2: How So, they want to defeat what they see as
Speaker 2: communication monopolies. They believe the public is often misinformed, maybe
Speaker 2: by big companies or governments.
Speaker 1: So they see themselves as what whistleblowers.
Speaker 2: Kind of maybe defenders of basic human rights, using their intellect,
Speaker 2: their courage to fight against censorship, against those hiding information.
Speaker 1: And for this group, sharing knowledge freely is paramount.
Speaker 2: Yes, for many, freely sharing what they discover is the
Speaker 2: fundamental principle of hacker ethics.
Speaker 1: Okay, hacker ethics, what does that actually entail?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Our sources mention things like not damaging systems. Right.
Speaker 2: The ideal, according to these ethics is that true hackers
Speaker 2: strive not to damage or crash the systems they penetrate.
Speaker 2: They might modify log file, sure, but only to erase
Speaker 2: their traces, covering their tracks exactly. And the other key
Speaker 2: principle is sharing discoveries freely without payment. That commitment to
Speaker 2: information freedom is why something like industrial espionage is considered
Speaker 2: totally contrary.
Speaker 1: To hacker ethics, because it's about selling information, not freeing
Speaker 1: it precisely. But you mentioned earlier sometimes this ethic doesn't
Speaker 1: quite match reality, like with sharing discoveries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where it gets nuanced. While the idea of
Speaker 2: a shared ethic is powerful, the reality is described as
Speaker 2: quite abstract and definitely not uniform. Well, there's this ongoing
Speaker 2: debate within the community itself, like full disclosure releasing vulnerability
Speaker 2: details immediately to the public versus responsible disclosure telling the
Speaker 2: software vendor first, giving them time to fix it.
Speaker 1: Ah. Okay, So even they don't agree on the right.
Speaker 2: Way exactly, that ethical debate is very much alive and kicking,
Speaker 2: showing it's not some monolithic code everyone follows.
Speaker 1: And what about the stereotype the antisocial nerd in the basement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the sources push back hard against that. They say
Speaker 2: many hackers are surprisingly well normal normal, sociable, good students,
Speaker 2: They have friends, play sports, social lives. The studies painting
Speaker 2: them as antisocial drug abusers often based on very limited
Speaker 2: segments of the community, not.
Speaker 1: The whole picture doesn't more complex much more.
Speaker 2: Although for some computers definitely do serve as an escape
Speaker 2: route escaping what uncomfortable realities, maybe divorced parents, feeling oppressed
Speaker 2: at school, maybe avoiding street gangs. They find refuge in
Speaker 2: the virtual.
Speaker 1: World in a sense of belonging.
Speaker 2: A huge sense of belonging in the underground community. It
Speaker 2: often becomes their main allegiance, a core part of their identity.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about escaping negative situations. Right. There's
Speaker 1: that story about Animore starlt pure Heart.
Speaker 2: Right, that's a great counter example. She was the first
Speaker 2: woman to win the cyber Ethical Survivor title at Defcon,
Speaker 2: a major hacker.
Speaker 1: Conference, and her story is different.
Speaker 3: Very different.
Speaker 2: Her parents actually encouraged her interest in computers. They helped
Speaker 2: her develop an ethical sense around it, talked openly with
Speaker 2: her about hacking.
Speaker 1: So the family environment can be a huge factor.
Speaker 2: Absolutely highlights how that environment can really shape whether someone's
Speaker 2: path goes towards ethical hacking or darker stuff.
Speaker 1: And within the underground itself, how do social relationships work.
Speaker 2: Well, it often acts as this haven, a place where
Speaker 2: you're judged purely on your skills, your knowledge, not your ethnicity,
Speaker 2: not your social class, not how much money you have.
Speaker 1: Meritocracy based on tech skills.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, and that environment really fosters free information sharing, mentorship.
Speaker 2: You gain respect through what you know and what you contribute,
Speaker 2: not through wealth.
Speaker 1: Okay, and the substance abuse link you said the stereotype
Speaker 1: is mostly wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the sources are quite clear. Most hackers do not
Speaker 2: abuse hard drugs or excessive alcohol. Clearheadedness is actually valued.
Speaker 2: You need to be sharp to do this stuff well.
Speaker 1: But it can be a factor sometimes it can.
Speaker 2: But often after they stop hacking, maybe due to getting
Speaker 2: caught or being exposed, the hacking itself can become almost
Speaker 2: like an addiction, a hacking dependency.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And when that's taken away, some might turned to
Speaker 2: substances to try and replicate those sensations fill that void.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a really interesting perspective. And what about their
Speaker 1: view on authority you mentioned resentment earlier.
Speaker 2: It's a very particular view. Hackers often see the main
Speaker 2: superpowers in their world, the hacker community itself, governments, and
Speaker 2: the wider Internet community as ideally existing in an equal relationship,
Speaker 2: equal how horizontal, peer to peer, no one group dominating
Speaker 2: the others. They equate that kind of structure with true democracy.
Speaker 1: And control of information is central to that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, for many of them, the real crime isn't the
Speaker 2: act of hacking itself, what is it then, but rather
Speaker 2: hiding the truth. That's a direct quote, and it's a
Speaker 2: powerful conviction shaping how they see the world and their
Speaker 2: place in it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the HPP project, the Hacker Profiling Project, didn't
Speaker 1: just talk about these ideas. They gathered actual data right
Speaker 1: from hackers themselves, exactly.
Speaker 2: They didn't just theorize. They went out and gathered data
Speaker 2: using extensive questionnaires, distributed them global, even at underground events
Speaker 2: hacker conferences and such.
Speaker 1: So they got input from the community directly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, allowing them to trace general hacker profiles by cross
Speaker 2: referencing lots of different sources, real data from the source, and.
Speaker 1: The results were surprising.
Speaker 3: Quite surprising, Yeah, especially regarding age.
Speaker 2: That stereotype of the young teenage hacker, the kid in
Speaker 2: the basement, right, the data kind of shatters that. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's a large number in the ten twenty age bracket,
Speaker 2: but there was also a significant percentage in the thirty
Speaker 2: five to forty group, and even forty one forty.
Speaker 1: Five really older hackers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the average age was actually twenty seven for females
Speaker 2: and twenty five for males in their sample. It suggests
Speaker 2: that many who started years ago are still very much active.
Speaker 2: It's not just a phase for everyone.
Speaker 1: That is surprising. What about socioeconomic status did that fit
Speaker 1: the stereotype?
Speaker 2: Not really either. A majority of the interviewees said they
Speaker 2: were from upper middle forty four percent or lower middle
Speaker 2: thirty seven percent class backgrounds.
Speaker 1: So not confined to one economic group.
Speaker 2: Yep. It really seems to cut a across different societal lines,
Speaker 2: not just you know, disenfranchised youth or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And where they lived. Does everyone live in big cities?
Speaker 2: Well a lot, due forty five percent were in large
Speaker 2: urban areas, but interestingly, twenty one percent lived in very
Speaker 2: small towns and.
Speaker 1: Villages, small towns. How does that work?
Speaker 2: It really shows how information and communication tech itself enables this.
Speaker 2: It sparks interest in people who historically would have found
Speaker 2: it really hard to even access the systems or equipment needed,
Speaker 2: geography becomes less of a barrier.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. What about education? Are they all college dropouts?
Speaker 2: Well, the data showed a significant drop in university graduates
Speaker 2: who continue hacking, and many hackers expressed a dislike for
Speaker 2: formal schooling why they found it not very stimulating or
Speaker 2: felt they learned nothing new. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: they're clearly smart and skills exactly. They describe themselves as inquisitive,
Speaker 2: they have high technical skills. It points to this profound
Speaker 2: love for self directed learning outside of traditional classrooms.
Speaker 1: They learn what they.
Speaker 2: Want to learn.
Speaker 1: Okay, and motivations. Did the data confirm that curiosity factor?
Speaker 1: It did.
Speaker 2: Thirty percent cited inquisitiveness as their number one reason for hacking,
Speaker 2: just wanting to know how things.
Speaker 1: Work, and any other major reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A notable fourteen percent said they do it for
Speaker 2: the good of the final users, actively looking for weaknesses
Speaker 2: and systems to try and make them safer for everyone.
Speaker 1: The ethical hacker motivation again.
Speaker 2: Seems so and for those who don't fear being arrested,
Speaker 2: which is quite a few, the top reasons they gave
Speaker 2: were fascinating, what were they? Thirty six percent cited the
Speaker 2: inadequacy of investigators. Basically, they think law enforcement can't catch them,
Speaker 2: and thirty five percent pointed to their own precautions and
Speaker 2: technical devices. They think they're too clever or well.
Speaker 1: Hidden, confidence or maybe arrogance, probably a bit of both.
Speaker 1: This next stat is really striking to me. Eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the responders don't think they're damaging anyone with what
Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, eighty percent, even though eighty one percent
Speaker 1: admit that what they're doing is legal in their country.
Speaker 2: It highlights this huge disconnect, doesn't it a core paradox?
Speaker 2: They see their actions as non malicious even while knowing
Speaker 2: they're breaking the law.
Speaker 1: Their internal ethical compass is just different from the legal one.
Speaker 2: Very different, And that probably explains why traditional deterrence don't
Speaker 2: always work.
Speaker 1: Right, because this study also found that law seemed pretty unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: As deterrence didn't.
Speaker 3: It largely unsuccessful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty five percent of hackers who said they'd stopped
Speaker 2: only stopped temporarily. They went back to it after a break.
Speaker 1: So stopping wasn't permanent for most.
Speaker 3: Not at all.
Speaker 2: And even among those who claimed to have stopped, seventy
Speaker 2: nine percent admitted they still dabbled in hacking occasionally.
Speaker 1: Wow. So it's really hard to give up.
Speaker 2: It suggests the challenge isn't just about the fear of
Speaker 2: legal consequences. It's tapping into something deeper, some ingrain drive,
Speaker 2: or maybe even that dependency we talked about.
Speaker 1: What about online identity? The use of.
Speaker 2: Nicknames also interesting. Fifty six percent said they use more
Speaker 2: than one nickname or.
Speaker 1: Handle okay, multiple aliases, yeah.
Speaker 3: And get this.
Speaker 2: Of those using multiple nicknames, sixty five percent admitted to
Speaker 2: feeling like they have more than one personality.
Speaker 1: Multiple personalities, like a disorder.
Speaker 2: No, the study is careful to say it's not about
Speaker 2: mental illness in that clinical sense. It's more about creating
Speaker 2: these distinct online personas, like an armor almost that protects
Speaker 2: their real identity and lets them operate differently online digital.
Speaker 1: Mask makes sense, and their social circles. Do their families
Speaker 1: know mostly know?
Speaker 2: A surprising sixty eight percent of parents were reportedly not
Speaker 2: aware of their children's hacking activities.
Speaker 1: Sixty eight percent. That's huge. Are they mostly loaners?
Speaker 2: Many operate alone fifty five percent, but a significant chunk
Speaker 2: thirty eight percent work both alone and in groups.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in these groups, do they know each other in
Speaker 1: real life?
Speaker 2: Often not within the groups, thirty percent of members had
Speaker 2: never met each other face to face there never, and
Speaker 2: fifty four percent don't even live in the same city
Speaker 2: or country as their hacking partners. They rely heavily on
Speaker 2: encrypted communication chat, IRC, Internet relay chat.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing, truly a global virtual underground way.
Speaker 1: One last set of findings that really caught my eye
Speaker 1: about sharing information.
Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, the sharing piece.
Speaker 1: Fifty nine percent said they do warn the cystant administrator
Speaker 1: after finding a breach, assuming they didn't intentionally damage anything.
Speaker 2: Right nearly sixty percent, which fits that helping security motive
Speaker 2: for some.
Speaker 1: But then maybe the most surprising stat for me, fifty
Speaker 1: three percent state they never share their discoveries with anyone else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: over half. That directly contradicts that core hacker ethic of
Speaker 1: free information exchange we talked about.
Speaker 3: It absolutely does.
Speaker 2: It challenges that principle head on, and only thirty two
Speaker 2: percent said they'd inform their own group after warning the
Speaker 2: sissiedmund So.
Speaker 1: Much for solidarity and free knowledge sharing in practice for many,
Speaker 1: at least.
Speaker 2: It suggests a much more complex, maybe more individualistic, or
Speaker 2: even competitive dynamic going on than the stated ideals might suggest.
Speaker 2: It's not all communal building.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so this deep dive, it really paints a
Speaker 1: picture of a hacker world that's far more complex, much
Speaker 1: more nuanced than the usual caricatures we see in movies
Speaker 1: or the news.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, from those surprising historical roots in Jack the Ripper
Speaker 2: profiling all the way to the intricate motivations the different subcultures,
Speaker 2: it's clear you have to look way beyond just the
Speaker 2: technical skills to understand who hackers are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've seen that they're often driven by this incredible curiosity, right,
Speaker 1: a desire to challenge authority, sometimes a profound belief in
Speaker 1: information freedom.
Speaker 2: But it's a world also profoundly shaped by anonymity, by
Speaker 2: this constantly shifting ethical landscape, and that inherent tension between
Speaker 2: security and access, between locking things down and wanting knowledge
Speaker 2: to be free.
Speaker 1: So here's something to think about as we wrap up
Speaker 1: in a world where technology is becoming as one of
Speaker 1: our sources. Beautifully put it an organic extension of our
Speaker 1: thoughts and words.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a powerful phrase.
Speaker 1: It really is. So in that world, how do we
Speaker 1: as a society figure out how to foster the positive
Speaker 1: sides of this that relentless curiosity, the drive for knowledge
Speaker 1: while still addressing the very real dangers that come from
Speaker 1: the darker corners of hacking.
Speaker 2: That's the critical question, isn't it. How do you nurture
Speaker 2: the good without enabling the bad?
Speaker 1: Exactly what stands out most to you listening today about
Speaker 1: the true motivations and the messy ethical landscape of this
Speaker 1: digital underground, something to definitely keep thinking about.