Profiles of Famous Computer Hackers

As it was mentioned before, the history of hacking is intermixed
with the history of computers. Many
of the famous computer hackers of the past are the billionaires of
today.

The most known hacker is Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft.
Considered the richest person in the world for more than a decade,
he became the most successful entrepreneur of the computer
industry. His beginnings go back to the 1970's when he designed
computer programs for the computer platforms of that era, and ended
with the introduction of Windows in the world of personal
computers.

After some time away from the media attention, Steve Jobs came back
with the introduction of several new products in Apple. The most
known of them is the iPod, which has revolutionized the music
industry around the world. Jobs started nearly at the same time
that Gates, founding Apple.

Although Linus Torvalds was known among the hacker community as the
hero who created Linux, the open source operating system, it hasn't
been until recent years that people started to wonder if there was
another option apart from using Microsoft's operating system.
Profiles of Bad Hackers
Unfortunately, there are as many bad hackers as productive hackers.
One of the most famous black hackers is Kevin Mitnick, who broke
into the computers of several organizations, including Fujitsu,
Motorola, Sun Microsystems and Nokia. He was imprisoned and even
today can't use a computer due to a judicial restriction.

Another famous hacker is Vladimir Levin, a mathematician who led a
group of Russian hackers and stole ten million dollars from
Citibank. Until this day, no one knows how they did it.

Jonathan James case is a bit more complicated. He was the first
juvenile from the teen hackers of the USA to be prosecuted for
computer hacking. But that didn't stop him. Later, he was able to
access the computer systems of NASA and the US Department of
Defense. Finally, he was imprisoned.

Fraud for Sale
Years ago, before the coming of the internet, hackers around the
world caused a lot of mayhem in organizations. But now that they
have a potential market of hundreds of millions of persons, their
options are almost limitless. That's why online fraud is considered
one of the cancers of the internet. The only way to protect from
it, is becoming an anti hacker ourselves, maintaining up to date
with the most basic knowledge: firewall, antivirus, antispam,
constant operating system updates and taking care of suspicious
websites.

The effects of computer hacking in our history can't be denied. It
is here and it won't disappear. But the most interesting thing
about the history of hacking is that it was expected to happen. You
only need to check old science fiction books to find it.

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