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Interview with a Hacker
Turner Fenton Campus
Brampton, Ontario

By Scott (grade 10)


Hackers. They are the bandits of the information superhighway. These techno wizards can appear to be average teenagers, but put a keyboard in front of them and they gain the power to cripple a large corporation.

Under the guise of a normal user, the hacker can slip into a system and find its secrets in a heartbeat. They can bypass security with ease and figure out most counter-measures as soon as they come out.

Some hack out of malicious intent while others are just curious. As society becomes more and more computerized, the power of these anarchists will grow to frightening levels. I spoke to one of these elusive people via the Internet’s IRC (internet relay chat), a place where users can speak in real time. Working under the handle (an alias used on the net) of Oderus Urungus, he is grudgingly acknowledged as one of the cyberspace elite.

Oderus claims that he hacks for fun. "The challenge of sneaking through a big system is amusing. I was 14 when I first tried real hacking. I had read a lot about it and it seemed interesting. I had a computer and a modem and that’s all you need. Wecan be stopped. If you are a sysop (system operator), you have to know your system and how it works. Also, you have to think like a hacker."

"We rule the net. There's nothing we can't do on it. People really haven't quite realized how little security they really have on the Internet." With that, he abruptly signs off, leaving me to ponder his last statement. How secure are Internet users?

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