INVITATION TO CYBERSECURITY 60 3.2.2 Nicks For obvious reasons, hackers like to keep their real-life identities secret. To conceal their identities, they are known online by their nicks (short for nicknames), also known as handles. MasterSplyntr is a nick that was inspired by the sensei character, Splinter, from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic. Splinter was a rat, and ironically, the person who used this nick was an FBI agent who infiltrated the cybercrime underground and ended up “ratting out” many cyber criminals! Table 3.2 lists a few notorious nicks. Table 3.2 A selection of notorious hacker nicks. Hackers may have multiple nicks or change them over time making the job of tracking their real-life identities difficult. Because of the seeming anonymity of online interactions, many times hackers act with a sense of impunity. Impunity does unfortunately exist sometimes due to the difficulty in prosecuting cybercrime, and this emboldens many hackers and cybercriminals. However, cybercriminals have to be extremely careful not to get their real-life identities tied in any way to their nicks since that can lead to evidence that may be used against them in a court of law. The investigative journalist Brian Krebs is famous for tracking cybercriminals across platforms and over time and tying them to real-life identities in posts he titles, “Breadcrumbs.” Many of these posts start with information about a notorious hacker known only by his nick and then end with his real-life name and photo. Some of these exposés have resulted in arrests! 3.2.3 Literature and Films “Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers.” - the first line of “The Conscience of a Hacker” by The Mentor in Phrack Early hacking literature was captured on bulletin board systems (BBSs) popular in the 1980s before the World Wide Web and the modern Internet. Hackers frequented BBSs to trade secrets and share information. They also created publications devoted to hacking such as Phrack and 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. Phrack’s name comes from combining
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