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It's interesting to me how easy it is for some people to circumvent their ethics. This kid is intelligent enough to know what he's done is unethical but I've ne

by marquis 14y ago

It's interesting to me how easy it is for some people to circumvent their ethics. This kid is intelligent enough to know what he's done is unethical but I've never been a teenage boy so I consider what would come with that feeling of discovering a sweet hack: a desire to use that knowledge to assert power above all costs.

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
Humans still have strong instinct. When you do something physical or violent you feel more like you're doing a lot, you feel more risk. But when you're doing something intellectual, well it just doesn't feel like it's that big a deal. That's how a lot of young smart kids get sucked into serious crimes.
S_A_P 14y ago
The mind of a teenage boy can be a dangerous place. They are old enough to realize the possibilities and thrills associated with what they are doing, but not experienced enough to realize the consequences of their actions. I know I was a "knucklehead" from about age 15-20. I never did anything that got me into too much trouble, but I distinctly remember that the line between right and wrong seemed much hazier than it does to me now. I only wish I could figure out a way to impress upon my kids the consequences of their actions.
- tankbot 14y ago
  Agree. I can remember vividly that same state of flux in my own life. When my parents dropped our dialup internet (too expensive) I looked for alternative ways to get online. My 'solution' was successful and was really exciting at the time but it was also illegal. After (poorly) emulating what I had done, a friend ended up with an angry sysadmin and some cops at his door. Obviously what I did was wrong, it was stealing. But at the time it didn't feel wrong. It was exciting, fun and interesting - unlike anything in school or sports. Not only that, but the kid who got busted was our valedictorian a few years later, arguably one of the smartest kids in school. All of the elation associated with the hack added to the fact that I knew most people couldn't do, or even understand, what I had done, masked any feelings of guilt or culpability in my still-developing conscience. Now I have a son on the way and I'm wondering what he will have to experience before learning these lessons and what I can do to help with that. The prospect of being a father is the happiest, most exciting thing in my life to date - and also the most terrifying.
wpietri 14y ago
I'm not sure it's so much "circumvent" as "it's not fully hooked up yet". Ethics are intellectual, but they're grounded in a human moral sense that is rooted in biology. (For a readable start on how, de Waal's Good Natured is a good book.) When I was his age I was much more aware of mechanism than of morality. For me the motivation to hack wasn't power in the social sense; it was tinkering with systems. It took me years for my moral sense to integrate well with my intellectual side to yield a proper system of ethics. In some ways that's still going on; the older I get, the more I have learned how to be compassionate. For me, the ethical framework is given force by very specific instances of compassion. For example, I was just looking again at Project Unbreakable: http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/ http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/ It's not like I ever thought sexual assault was ethically ok. But reading bout each one of those people gives it more emotional power.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  Without incriminating myself, let's say that maybe I've seen some files belonging to other people that I shouldn't have when I was a teenager. At the time, I justified it easily to myself - I don't care if someone sees the contents of my hard drive, so why should it be unethical for me to root through someone else's? I'm 28, now, and a year ago my mom reminded me that I'd said that. I was pretty embarrassed at how I'd acted, and how I justified it to myself. I hope I remember that sequence of events when I have kids.
pnathan 14y ago
I guess I'd say that teenagers don't often have a fully developed sense of ethics. I would like to make a gross assumption and make a wild guess that Cosmo is developing ethics, along with his growing up and developing a criminal record. At least that's how the Wired article reads (& suggests) to me.
anonymous 14y ago
It appears the guy he hacked was not chosen at random. So why was he chosen? If you start something like Project Honeypot and then Cloudflare does that suggest you want to play "good guys, bad guys"? It's very subjective stuff. Is that sort of "business model" inviting trouble? Not to imply there are no "bad guys" on the web - of course there are - but who would want to play with them? "Good guys?" The social engineering stuff is disturbing. It makes you not want to sign up for anything online, not even web mail. But when you run websites that purport to label internet users as "good" or "bad" based on spurious evidence and numerous inferences, are you not opening yourself up to even more attention from "bad guys"? Is it possible to run an internet business without messing around with these types of characters? Honest question. As for your question, marquis, I think it's simple psychology: If you go online and assert "You can't hack me" or "Our system is hack-proof" to an audience that includes people like the teenager in the story, then it's perceived as a challenge. And as we continue to see, both of those assertions continue to be false. The Wired stories always follow the same plot: In the end, the teenager is arrested, but the damage has already been done.

by marquis 14y ago

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago

Humans still have strong instinct. When you do something physical or violent you feel more like you're doing a lot, you feel more risk. But when you're doing something intellectual, well it just doesn't feel like it's that big a deal. That's how a lot of young smart kids get sucked into serious crimes.

S_A_P 14y ago

The mind of a teenage boy can be a dangerous place. They are old enough to realize the possibilities and thrills associated with what they are doing, but not experienced enough to realize the consequences of their actions. I know I was a "knucklehead" from about age 15-20. I never did anything that got me into too much trouble, but I distinctly remember that the line between right and wrong seemed much hazier than it does to me now. I only wish I could figure out a way to impress upon my kids the consequences of their actions.

tankbot 14y ago
Agree. I can remember vividly that same state of flux in my own life. When my parents dropped our dialup internet (too expensive) I looked for alternative ways to get online. My 'solution' was successful and was really exciting at the time but it was also illegal. After (poorly) emulating what I had done, a friend ended up with an angry sysadmin and some cops at his door. Obviously what I did was wrong, it was stealing. But at the time it didn't feel wrong. It was exciting, fun and interesting - unlike anything in school or sports. Not only that, but the kid who got busted was our valedictorian a few years later, arguably one of the smartest kids in school. All of the elation associated with the hack added to the fact that I knew most people couldn't do, or even understand, what I had done, masked any feelings of guilt or culpability in my still-developing conscience. Now I have a son on the way and I'm wondering what he will have to experience before learning these lessons and what I can do to help with that. The prospect of being a father is the happiest, most exciting thing in my life to date - and also the most terrifying.

wpietri 14y ago

I'm not sure it's so much "circumvent" as "it's not fully hooked up yet". Ethics are intellectual, but they're grounded in a human moral sense that is rooted in biology. (For a readable start on how, de Waal's Good Natured is a good book.) When I was his age I was much more aware of mechanism than of morality. For me the motivation to hack wasn't power in the social sense; it was tinkering with systems. It took me years for my moral sense to integrate well with my intellectual side to yield a proper system of ethics. In some ways that's still going on; the older I get, the more I have learned how to be compassionate. For me, the ethical framework is given force by very specific instances of compassion. For example, I was just looking again at Project Unbreakable: http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/ http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/ It's not like I ever thought sexual assault was ethically ok. But reading bout each one of those people gives it more emotional power.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
Without incriminating myself, let's say that maybe I've seen some files belonging to other people that I shouldn't have when I was a teenager. At the time, I justified it easily to myself - I don't care if someone sees the contents of my hard drive, so why should it be unethical for me to root through someone else's? I'm 28, now, and a year ago my mom reminded me that I'd said that. I was pretty embarrassed at how I'd acted, and how I justified it to myself. I hope I remember that sequence of events when I have kids.

pnathan 14y ago

I guess I'd say that teenagers don't often have a fully developed sense of ethics. I would like to make a gross assumption and make a wild guess that Cosmo is developing ethics, along with his growing up and developing a criminal record. At least that's how the Wired article reads (& suggests) to me.

anonymous 14y ago

It appears the guy he hacked was not chosen at random. So why was he chosen? If you start something like Project Honeypot and then Cloudflare does that suggest you want to play "good guys, bad guys"? It's very subjective stuff. Is that sort of "business model" inviting trouble? Not to imply there are no "bad guys" on the web - of course there are - but who would want to play with them? "Good guys?" The social engineering stuff is disturbing. It makes you not want to sign up for anything online, not even web mail. But when you run websites that purport to label internet users as "good" or "bad" based on spurious evidence and numerous inferences, are you not opening yourself up to even more attention from "bad guys"? Is it possible to run an internet business without messing around with these types of characters? Honest question. As for your question, marquis, I think it's simple psychology: If you go online and assert "You can't hack me" or "Our system is hack-proof" to an audience that includes people like the teenager in the story, then it's perceived as a challenge. And as we continue to see, both of those assertions continue to be false. The Wired stories always follow the same plot: In the end, the teenager is arrested, but the damage has already been done.