Hacking Exposed, Underlying Motivation - Essay Example

Jonathan James, 15 years of age, hacked the following organizations: NASA, Defense Department, and the Marshall Space Flight Center. The resulting damages were: $1.7 million in software stolen from NASA; viewing the Defense Threat Reduction Agency server, the agency of the Department of Defense; and “downloaded the proprietary environmental control software for the International Space Station — the programming that controlled the temperature and humidity in the station’s living space” (What’s the latest, 2010, par.1). Initially, James was “banned from recreational computer use and was slated to serve a six-month sentence under house arrest with probation. However, he served six months in prison for violation of parole” (IT Security, 2010, par.7).

Underlying Motivation
It was indicated in the article that James hacked computers for fun. He was exposed to computers at a very young age. His father remembers James as “a passionate computer geek, who started playing with the family PC at the age of 6 and switched his computer from Windows to Linux in middle school” (What’s the latest, 2010, par. 8).
• Based on the six categories of hackers presented in your textbook on page 93, how would you categorize the hacker in your case? Why? (Larry, you said you would take care of this portion).

Punishment
Due to the tender age of James, at 16, when he was sentenced for the crimes committed, what could have been a 10-year sentence of incarceration for an adult for the crime, he was only restricted from using the computer and was on house arrest with clear probation.

Given the sensitivity of the organizations he hacked, he should have been given a more stringent punishment in terms of an extended period of incarceration (or house arrest, for that matter). Or, since he has proven to have the intelligence and the capacity to intrude into sensitive software of top organizations, one of these organizations could have used his potential to productive use. By merely letting him go after the punishment, he was again suspected of “being part of the conspiracy responsible for the largest identity theft in U.S. history. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home on May 18, 2008, less than two weeks after agents raided his house in connection with a hacking ring that penetrated TJX, DSW, and OfficeMax, among others” (Whats, 2010, par.6). Ultimately, death was the punishment for his crime.

Looking Inside the Box
The crime could have been deterred by a more effective and serious computer security system. As averred by James, “The government didn’t take too many measures for security on most of their computers,” James told PBS’s Frontline at the time. “They lack some serious computer security, and the hard part is learning it. I know Unix and C like the back of my hand, because I studied all these books, and I was on the computer for so long. But the hard part isn’t getting in. It’s learning to know what it is that you’re doing.” (What’s, 2010, par. 4). Read More