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title: Internet Boom Puts Home PCs At Risk Of Hackers
author: Nick Nuttall
source: The London Times

18th October 1996

Home computers, which carry everything from private banking details to
love letters, are becoming vulnerable to hackers as more households
connect to the Internet. 

The boom in electronic services is making the home PC as open to attack
as company and government systems, a survey of hackers has disclosed.
The Internet is also helping hackers to become more skilful as they
exchange tips and computer programs around the globe. 

[* Survey of hackers?! Bullshit. *]

A spokesman for Kinross and Render, which carried out the survey for
Computacenter, said: "Breaking into home computers is now increasingly
possible and of great interest to hackers. It may be a famous person's
computer, like Tony Blair's or a sports personality. Equally it could be
yours or my computer carrying personal details which they could use for
blackmailing." 

Passwords remain easy to break despite warnings about intrusion.
Companies and individuals frequently use simple name passwords such as
Hill for Damon Hill or Blair for the Labour leader. Hackers also said
that many users had failed to replace the manufacturer's password with
their own. 

Hackers often use programs, downloaded from the Internet, which will
automatically generate thousands of likely passwords. These are called
Crackers and have names such as Satan or Death.

[* Satan? Death? Ahhhh! *]

John Perkins, of the National Computing Centre in Manchester, said
yesterday: "The linking of company and now home computers to the
global networks is making an expanding market for the hackers." The
Computacenter survey was based on interviews with more than 130
hackers, supplemented by interviews over the Internet. The average
hacker is 23, male and a university student. At least one of those
questioned began hacking ten years ago, when he was eight. 

[* No offense to anyone out there, but how in the hell could they
   validate any claims in a survey like that? And especially with
   that amount? *]

Most said it was getting easier, rather than harder, to break in and
many hackers would relish tighter computer security because this would
increase the challenge. Existing laws are held in contempt and almost 80
per cent said tougher laws and more prosecutions would not be a
deterrent. Eighty-five per cent of those questioned had never been
caught.

Most said the attraction of hacking lay in the challenge, but a hard
core were keen to sabotage computer files and cause chaos, while others
hoped to commit fraud.

[* Excuse me while I vomit. *]