Misha Glenny Quotes
What has happened is that we have seen a shift in the past twenty years in the very concept of hacking. So hacking twenty years ago was a neutral, positive concept. Somebody who was a hacker was someone with advanced computer skills, which could expose vulnerabilities and could explain why systems worked well or worked badly and they were generally regarded as an asset. Over the past twenty years, a combination of media and law enforcement has changed the perception of the concept so that it has almost always, if not invariably, a pejorative sense attached.
Glenny, Misha. "Hire the hackers!" TED, Jul. 2011.
See {583139} for the Twitter point of view.
In the early 21st century hackers who committed fraud and stole much money were not considered as serious as hackers who would have a political (anti-government) message display on the government’s own website. The latter were considered much more of a threat than the former although the only “damage” the former did was inconvenience and embarassment to government officials.
The FBI had obtained a court order requiring apple to write software that could hack into a person's iPhone. Apple, with most other hi-tech companies in support, filed a motion with the court opposing the order. The FBI shortly thereafter withdrew its request for the order saying that they had found other solutions, when they had originally told the court that there were no other solutions.
The law enforcement and the intelligence agencies have been claiming for a number of years that etrong encryption (encryption which no one can crack with existing technology) if used by the general public would really hinder law enforcement and espionage efforts. The Federal government actually obtained a court order prohibiting the inventor of the stong encryption frm sharing the equations and techniques with anyone--as blatant an infringement to the right of free speech as there was been. The order was ignored and although the government tried to intimidate the developer by threatening him with prison. He refused to comply and the government finally dropeed the case, as the courts would almost certainly find such a jailing unconstitutional. However, although they tell the courts that there is a clear and present danger if terrorists use encryption, no one had, up to that time, found a single case where being able to decypher the encryption would have prevented an attack.
Michael V. E. "Misha" Glenny is a British journalist and broadcaster, specialising in southeast Europe, global organised crime, and cybersecurity. He is multilingual. He is also the writer and producer of the BBC Radio 4 series, How to Invent a Country.
