For Hackers, Anonymity Was Once Critical. That’s Changing.

Surely the ones who discover possible zero day exploits and disclose to the website owners are white hats, others who do not are losers. I guess it is hard to decide which is which, when it seems like it is very easy to move back and forth and deny that is what you are doing. I am not aware of any code of ethics for hackers, which seems like an oxymoron just describing it. We should always remember the Internet is just the Wild Wild West, and these are some of the cowboys you may encounter there.

This news article is really just propaganda from the establishment; pleading for hackers to abandon the private life of the cracking collective. I don't believe for one moment that "hackers" are collectively joining the public sphere. In fact, I would say the deep web economy is doing the very opposite of what this article is implying. The number of hackers may have faded in the early 2000s, but once crypto-currency was created, the number of people dedicated to living privately exploded exponentially. These people just represent a tiny margin of the community.

Anonymity for the protection of privacy is nothing new. Authors have used pen names for centuries to protect themselves from the nut cases out there, and to enable them to speak freely on controversial subjects. George Orwell (Eric Blair), Walter Keane (Margaret Keane) and possibly William Shakespeare (anonymous) come to mind. The slippery slope starts when an alias is used as a means of deception for committing unethical or illegal acts. I once signed a 'black contract' with a company for doing some engineering consulting work for them. That meant that I couldn't even divulge to anyone that I was working for them. As a result I experienced some levels of paranoia (which, as it turned out, was probably their intent). I only figured out later that a black contract is impossible to carry out, as the bank had to cash the checks. Also, under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), something can be maintained as a trade secret only if there is a financial benefit to doing so. My advice is that, if approached by a company with a 'black contract'...run, don't walk, away from it. Not only are they up to no good, they don't know diddly-squat about the law.

Why even attend conferences or being an executive if you wanted anonymity. If you publicly expose yourself you implicitly accept to be revealed. I find the myth of Clark Kent hiding just behind glasses laughable. Come on!! It’s him, he’s Superman folks, just open your eyes. He’s right HERE!!!

I found this article amusing that hackers actually believe they are anonymous. It's not like Defcon is some secret society that meets in the woods. I have a pretty confidence level that if the FBI or NSA really wanted to know someone's identity they could do so without too much effort. After all, what is better than identifying hackers is letting them continue to believe they are anonymous. One thinks that a broad contingent of self proclaimed hackers just enjoy thought of being anonymous and a comic-book-like hero when in reality white hat hacking is really nothing more than extensive QA work.

Everybody should take a page from the hacker's book of privacy concerns. For the average user personal information is already in the streets. The private sector has been using technology to harvest all types of information for decades now. It's quite ironic we more frequently hear concerns about government practices, operating under far more stringent rules. We should all cover-up a little on line IMHO, even if it's just for the principle of the thing.

Hackers and Trolls use anonymity to do and say as they please without having to abide by social norms or legal limits. This cowardly behavior is no different from wearing bedsheets and burning crosses at night to intimidate others. Say or do what you want but use your real name. Outed? No sympathy from me!

It's a combination of things IMO. Maybe a decade ago anonymity was important. They called handles now, and I see it more of byproduct of the communication channel security individuals use, Twitter, slack, etc. It has little to do with hiding your identity, but rather establishing a brand behind your username, to get folks to follow you or your blogs or use your company for services. DefCon doesnt provide much anonymity, and if you are enforcing, no one will chat with you, nor will you ever become a player in the security industry...only criminals hide their identities now. Nearly every new person I met there wasnt a "hacker," but rather worked on the defense...they're all interlopers of sorts. Also, the place is loaded with people who work for the us government, and has been for years...it's no secret. It's all gimmick that DefCon plays to make it seem more legit. Everyone in the know, know's its a joke.

It would be interesting to get some opinions from these people on Block Chain and it’s ability to encrypt data.

It often appears that the Internet has gone from a tool used to find useful information to a tool that markets my personal information to anyone willing to pay for it. Consider all the access demanded by a phone app. Does an app that shows local fuel prices really need anything more than my geographic location? Nevertheless, this bit of spyware wants access to a broad range of information stored on my phone which it then sells so it can target ads that appear onscreen. I completely left Facebook because it became the hub of data mining, with tentacles that extend to any app I used it to log in with. It's downright offensive that I have to surrender my life to obtain any useful functionality from a "free" application. I would much prefer to simply pay five bucks for the utility without the nosy meddling. I'd love to see an app that would block other apps from stealing my personal info. Is there a hacker in the house?

Breaking into a server is NO different than breaking into a house and stealing things. Yet we treat hackers like they are special. I gave up my business because of hackers. I was not spending time on coding and making the site better, I was spending eight hours a day defending it from hackers. Multiple hackers would pound my site every second of every minute of every hour of every day, day after day. They hogged bandwidth that I had to pay for. It just kept getting worse and worse. After a solid week playing defense, blocking ip addresses, etc., I threw in the towel. Defending my home against constant threats and intruders is not what I signed up for and not the life I wanted.

I think the elephant in the article is do they sell what they have learned to white hats or black hats. Is it just a question of who will pay more? Privacy is an issue for all of us in our new online world. There is no easy way at this time to manage what is in the public sphere and what entities collect (and sell) about us.

I was looking for policy insights and got personalities instead. Whatever. The internet (which I, in my small way, helped to build) is already evolved into various privacy layers. full on anonymity is the outer, most lawless and fungible layer. At the core are the many corporate platforms that have largely migrated to verifiable identities, credit cards connected to address and financial scoring, "account retrieving" phone numbers or email addresses similarly traceable to warm bodies. Ask the hackers -- shouldn't there be verifiable online identities? Instead of asking our Google account to vouch for us, shouldn't there be a way for any and all of us to become "real" online and thereby be granted access to the most sensitive, privileged access to content and services? I think so. I'm still in the minority. But anonymity is on decline. Give the credit to online commerce, or social media, or doxxing ... whatever. But the wild west days are a vanishing time, and the anonymity cowboys a vanishing breed.

What an interesting article. Given the sophistication of these people wrt programming and communications, where does that leave the average person who depends on Norton or Kaspersky or Bitdefender to keep their system clear of security breaches and out-and-out spying? The absurd jargon and mountains of text in the purchase and use agreements for even the "best" security suites, like Norton, include lots of double-talk, for those who even have the time and inclination to read it, that opens avenues for personal data-collection and sharing. It would be great if a group of these young people could form a company that enabled one to have deep protection from institutional and malicious intruders. I'd buy it.