I know by the title you might assume the I mean white hat hackers going against black hat hackers.
No, I am talking about something different.
There are certain hackers that use their ability stop crimes that go far beyond the online realm.
They use their understanding of computers and the Internet, to hack into the systems of child molesters and Islamic jihadist.
Once they discover a crime being committed, they then report the perpetrator to the police.
We are hearing about more and more cases that are like this.
Hackers such as this are using illegal (at least in some countries) means to try to accomplish good.
Hackers And Vigilantism
But is online vigilantism good, or can it lead to more problems?
There is a story that is being reported about now in the security media about a guy who goes by the Twitter name th3j35t3r.
The story was first broke by threatchaos.com.
This hacker has decided to use his skills to infiltrate into different Islamic extremist web sites and try to gather as much information as possible.
He not only passively gathers data and reports it, he also does his best to disrupt the inner workings of the site itself.
He uses a DDOS attack to knock the sites offline.
This is not the first time that someone has done this.
There have been other hackers and online vigilantes that have tried to infiltrate criminal online networks.
Taking Out Sickos Sounds Noble Enough
There have been other hackers that have done their best to try to disrupt online kiddie porn rings.
Online child pornography remains a big problem and the perpetrators of this crime do their best to try to hide their tracks.
This is why the police are sometimes a step behind these criminals.
Some hackers have decided to pick up the slack and try to stop these criminals themselves.
One person went so far as to hack the criminals web cam and capture pictures and videos of what the person looked like.
A judge was also rounded up in the investigation.
The police do not usually condone vigilantism but in these particular cases they did admit that the extra information helped.
There is a thin line between actually helping the police and violating a persons civil rights.
If the hackers monitored a web site that just had an Islamic person, who was just voicing an opinion, then the hackers could mistake that for a threat.
If the hacker reported this to the police, then you would be violating that persons privacy and civil rights.
People are allowed to have opinions, just not cause other people harm.
What do you think of the jester (read this first) – th3j35t3r – is he a hero or misguided vigilante?
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@teksquisite Your recent comment has garnered a reply – http://bit.ly/akW93h
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
@teksquisite
I would like you to back your claim up with fact if at all possible? I do recall hitting a false positive, realised after about 5 mins into the strike and immediatley cancelled the attack, and furthermore I tweeted an apology straight away. The site in question was back up within seconds.
th3j35t3r is not a genuine hacktivist. This person is also downing sites that have nothing to do with Islamic extremist web sites (out of spite.) Don’t ever piss th3j35t3r off or disagree with him because he will seek revenge. Sadly, this person is emotionally immature and will end up doing far more damage than good.
Hi Bev
I’ve never seen him mention non-Islamist sites in his tweets – have I not been following him long enough or have you got that info elsewhere?