Original subtitles

in this lesson we'll be talking about

why you may want to learn to hack

sometimes you may want to hack just for

fun as discussed previously hacking is a

tradition that goes back several decades

at MIT even preceding the computer

related definition of hacking MIT has a

long and storied history of hacking

sometimes of a computer related nature

which in this case happens to be true

sometimes of a non computer related

instance here mi t's home page has been

hacked or you might say defaced to

indicate that disney is buying MIT this

was an April Fool's Day prank in 1998

and again this is just kind of for the

fun of it sometimes you want to make a

social or political point in this case

again MIT Bill Gates donated some money

that allowed MIT to have a new building

he was coming to MIT to visit and to

speak and the Microsoft Windows systems

that were installed in the entryway at

the building were hacked to be running

Linux instead and you can see here tux

the penguin is saying welcome to the

william h gates building again that's

some students who decided they wanted to

make a point about linux and microsoft

and windows to Bill Gates sometimes you

hack just for the challenge here's an

example again at MIT where some students

turned the facade of a building into a

Tetris game board this was a reasonably

difficult hack and the students went

after it just for the challenge of

completing it just so they could have

some pride of ownership and to be able

to say that they were able to pull this

off in spite of its difficulties and its

challenges and all of the obstacles and

planning that had to go into it and they

were able to pull it off and they have

those bragging rights now so that was

one that was just for the challenge of

doing it

sometimes you want a hack to prevent

theft and this is where we get more

specifically into computer related

hacking you'll see a lot of articles and

stories in the news over the last few

years about cybercrime and here's an

example data theft compromised fewer

than one and a half million cards for

global payments so there are some

attackers who got into this company

global payments and they were able to

pull about a million and a half credit

card numbers during an intrusion there

so what you may want to do is you may

want to learn how to hack in order to

find holes in your own systems or

applications or your employer systems or

applications so that you can fix those

holes and prevent these compromises from

happening because of the reputation will

hit that your company would have to take

or because of the loss of customers or

because that loss of customers may

eventually lead to the company going out

of business which means you lose your

job so here's a good reason to hack you

may want to find all of the problems

that exist in your systems before

putting them out and deploying them so

that you can keep these attackers from

getting in and stealing critical or

sensitive information sometimes you may

want to hack to get there before the bad

guys same sort of ideas the last one we

were just talking about here's some

attack code that was published for

critical Internet Explorer flaw there

are a number of people in the world who

go out looking for these flaws they call

themselves security researchers they get

in touch with vendors after they found a

flaw or a bug and work with the vendor

to get it fixed what they end up with is

a bit of a reputation they get a name

for themselves that name recognition may

end up getting them a job or some

speaking engagements or a book deal any

number of ways that you could cash in on

name recognition from finding these

sorts of bugs and getting them fixed if

you want to get there before the bad

guys you may think you're helping out a

vendor you may want to just make a name

for yourself and you want to find these

sorts of bugs before the bad guy

do because the thing about the bad guys

finding them is they don't announce them

they don't get them fixed and that makes

everybody a little less secure finally

may want to protect yourself hacked

companies fight cyber criminals this is

a news headline from jun 18 2012 we're

starting to see these sorts of news

headlines show up as companies are

starting to retaliate against attackers

in order to retaliate against attackers

you need to be able to have the same

sorts of skills and techniques and

knowledge and experience that those

attackers have where your company may

want you to learn to hack or the company

may want to bring in people who are

skilled at these sorts of activities so

that they can attack the attackers and

hopefully you end up with a more steely

exterior and you get a reputation for

not being a company that people want to

go after and those are several reasons

why you may want to hack