HWCase3 Q1

[esabbs]

The Morris Worm Ethics case

-The morris worm was released November 2nd, 1988 around 8:30 PM
-A "self-replicating" computer program that was released to the internet
-Released from a computer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
-This program infected around 6,000 computers of 60,000 computers connected to the internet at this time
-Attacked computers using a specific version of the Unix operating version
-Worm was designed to be undetected
-Damages were in the millions of dollars range
-Created by a guy named Robert Tappan Morris
-Morris went to Cornell University but went to M.I.T. to release the worm to cover up its origins

-Should cybersecurity professionals during this time really be held to high accountability for this? Considering a situation like this was one of the first of it's kind?
-How should ethical hacking for research be differentiated from a cyber crime?
-Should legal consequences for hacking depend based on intent, or the damage caused?

-Should users that were affected be compensated for the damages?

Comments

RE: HWcase3

[ijjeon]

yes i feel like professionals should be held accountable. because this is why they are professionals, they are the ones that are consistently making breakthroughs in the field. I feel like if they took their jobs seriously they would have researched countermeasures ahead of time.

RE: HWcase3

[ijjeon]

They should absolutely be compensated. that virus could have destroyed their computers or further more it could have released information that was confidential to the person in question. so I believe that it is absolutely be compensated.

RE: HWcase3

[ijjeon]

I think it should be by intent because normally the intent reflects the damage caused so I feel that based off of intentions is the best way to go about with "legal consequences" but damage caused is a private consequence that should also be taken care of by the POI.

[livie202]

The damage that that virus caused could be irreversible. Holding someone accountable for the mistake of this attack is the only way. Has there been any ways that cyber security in universities and public places so something like this couldn't happen again?

[brandowun]

Hacking for research as in students learning a class shouldn't be considered a crime up to a certain extent.

A guy on Shawn Ryan show, "The most dangerous man in the world". Goes after child predators that buy and sell images of kids without clothes. Do you consider him bad? No, not at all, its for a good reason.

When he was younger he hacked into hundreds of thousands of computers to mine bitcoin. He went as far as reducing the usage of the PC when the users was actively on the computer. When they were not on it, (easily able to tell, he didn't have to manually click a button for every person it was automatic) then he would ramp up the usage of the PC to mine faster.

Was it ethical, not really because he was making money off of people using their energy and using their computer parts. Then on the other hand he reduced its ability once they were on so they could still use their system with no issues.

It all depends on what or why right? So yes i think depending on what it is, it should be looked at a case to case basis.