INVITATION TO CYBERSECURITY 62 3.2.4 Commerce The medium of exchange of hacking culture is online currencies and money orders. These types of transactions are popular because they are difficult to trace to real-life identities and are irreversible. An early cyberspace currency was called e-gold, and it ended up being so abused by cybercriminals that eventually law enforcement seized it and shut it down. Bitcoin is a modern day cryptocurrency that has come under criticism for the role it plays in cybercrime because hacker extortion demands are often paid in Bitcoin. Of course, there are many other cryptocurrencies with new ones being invented all the time, and any one of them is fair game for the hacking community who seek anonymity and ease of use. Money orders are a physical space alternative to cryptocurrencies. They are reliable but lack convenience and carry physical space risks because they must be purchased in-person. While the cybercrime market is illegal and therefore unregulated, it does sometimes exhibit ethical business practices. If a hacker buys stolen credit card numbers and then discovers they are not valid, he might actually get his money back. Even black market businesses are worried about reputational damage. Also, some cyber black markets do enforce some level of morality. They may ban certain “products” like human trafficking because of their moral repugnancy. Generally speaking, however, financial dealings in the cybercrime market place come with risks. Some hacking groups have been accused of faking law enforcement takeovers to avoid paying their partners. They take their business offline and either eventually reopen under a new name, or retire with their ill-gotten gains. 3.2.5 Folk Stories “I was hooked in before hacking was even illegal.” – Kevin Mitnick The Discovery Channel released a documentary in 2001 called A Secret History of Hacking that highlights the role of phone phreakers and folk heroes in hacking culture. The documentary provides vignettes of famous hackers such as Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the famous social engineer Kevin Mitnick. The most famous phone phreaker highlighted is John Draper. He discovered that the toy plastic whistle that came in Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes was tuned to 2600 Hz—the tone that triggered operator mode when whistled into a phone (see Figure 3.8). Draper became known as “Captain Crunch” because of his discovery.
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