In other news
Water still a wet liquid and the Pope still following catholicism.
Teenage hackers get mixed up in cybercrime mostly to gain bragging rights over peers rather than to get rich, according to a new study. The National Crime Agency report fingers peer pressure and kudos as a key reason for youngsters in getting mixed up with online crime. Few if any of those who stray on to the wrong side of the …
Im tired of the line that suggests getting caught makes a hacker rubbish. Thats just not true.
"Hacking in and covering your tracks" is a phallacy. Since there is always collateral damage be it kit being forced offline or data being stolen. Whatever it may be.
There is, was and never will be a situation where someone snarfs millions of records from a database without anyone eventually noticing.
Also, getting caught and being charged are two entirely different things. Cybercrime is notoriously hard to prove.
Its very easy to get caught, especially since the required skillset is relatively uncommon. Its easy to catch a knife weilding maniac but its much harder to prove he actually harmed anyone.
Several problems here:
1. Barely anyone knows how to code or has any real knowledge of cyber security
2. Those that do have sufficient knowledge earn much more money doing things other than teaching
3. Teaching is a horrible profession at secondary school level
4. Absolutely no one else in the entire school would be able to understand what the fuck is going on beyond 1 or 2 actually interested students per year group and the teacher
Schools have enough trouble finding competent math teachers, never mind actual cyber security or coding experts.
All true, but they're already learning online, outside of the formal setting. So run with that, and give them places online that meet the need without driving them black hat.
The problem would be keeping such places from becoming recruitment grounds for black hats or governments, but hey, not my job. :-)
They're getting recruited by black hats and governments already, so what difference would it make that some still are? For every one who is diverted into some sort of alternative online setting like you're talking about and stays on the "white hat" side, that's one fewer for the black hats and governments to recruit.
"Last year's TalkTalk hack is a prime example of how a young person working alone in their bedroom can significantly impact an entire business"
.. Not really, Talk Talk got off essentially free, microscopic fine (when you think how many peoples personal data), no criminal charges.
So, minimal impact on the business, not so good for customers who had personal data lifted
I was a big John Peel fan, starting with the last couple years of "Top Gear" (no, not that one!). I was listening the first time he played "Teenage Kicks" ... I never did understand his fascination with the song, I thought (and still think) it is simple dreadful pop. Just goes to show, if we all liked the same thing the world would be an awfully boring place!
RIP, John. This round is on me.
As far as young offenders are concerned, it's peer pressure of a sort. Being horny adolescents they're desperate to get laid. If they're weak and nerdy they're not going to impress the girls with their non-existent fighting skills. So instead they try to impress by cybercrime. Look at me! I'm an 3771 h4x0R!!!1!
The cheapest, quickest and easiest way of deterring such people from cybercrime is to pay for them to have a session with a prostitute. After they've been laid once, the desperate need goes away and they're more amenable to thinking with their big brain rather than their little one.
For the true criminals, of course, money is the reward. They're much harder to discourage.
Most teens go through a period of rebellion against authority...then or (with more damage) later on. Ignoring this motivator is silly. Whether it's annoying music, pot, tattoos, weird clothes, piercing, it's done to annoy deliberately. Most of these things are looked back on later as having been pretty silly, once people grow out of it (if they're honest) and sometimes regret. If it's against the rules, and you might get away with it, teens are going to do it, period. That's without yet mentioning anything to do with computers, duh.
So, if you find out what makes them not be crackers - you can solve the entire rebellion thing on any subject. GoodLuckWithThat.