They are coming fast and furious now. Maybe it’s because they missed the April fools deadline or figured we needed a break from usual perpetrators of newsworthy stupidity. Whatever the reason, a new survey conducted by Trend Micro and published in Metro.co.uk sports this provocative headline: 40% of teenagers have hacked
More than 40 per cent of teenagers have hacked into social networking profiles to snoop on e-mails or copy bank account details.
Yikes! Almost half of our teenagers headed for a life of cybercrime! Say it ain’t so! Okay – it ain’t so.
Now I certainly have no problem believing that 40% of the teenagers surveyed would like to be known as hackers. This reminds me of those “recent studies” about marital infidelity where similar statements are made.
Recent studies reveal that 45-55% of married women and 50-60% of married men engage in extramarital sex at some time or another during their relationship.
Again I have no problem believing that over half of married men like to think that there are women dying to engage in adulterous affairs with them. Presumably the referenced 45-50% philandering females.
Seriously though, aside from engaging in some teenage social status enhancement with the Trend Micro surveyors, the sort of stuff that is being designated as “hacking” for purposes of this survey is a bit like the formal US legal definition of “weapons of mass destruction” cited in this article by Bruce Schneier and paraphrased here.
Not only is a grenade a weapon of mass destruction, but so is a maliciously-designed child’s rocket even if it doesn’t have a warhead. On the other hand, although a missile-propelled firecracker would be considered a weapons of mass destruction if its designers had wanted to think of it as a weapon, it would not be so considered if it had previously been designed for use as a weapon and then redesigned for pyrotechnic use or if it was surplus and had been sold, loaned, or given to you (under certain circumstances) by the Secretary of the Army.
All artillery, and virtually every muzzle-loading military long arm for that matter, legally qualifies as an WMD.
Yikes again! I personally own WMDs! Clearly I must be a terrorist. Uh… Let’s nip this little diversion in the bud.
The point is that eavesdropping and punking your clueless “friends” on Facebook is not hacking. So for good measure the article throws in an amazing revelation like this.
Some hacking techniques have even been posted on micro-blogging site Twitter.
Merciful heavens! The next thing you know those deviously clever hackers will have their own web sites wherein their malicious wares can be purchased! Note for the irony impaired - the preceding statements were sarcasm.
I suspect that Billy Shakespeare would sum this up correctly as much ado about nothing. I don’t know what it is with seemingly otherwise reputable security firms publishing these meaningless security studies. Recall the recent Symantec study wherein they discovered the underground internet that I wrote about here. Maybe they’re just trying to reach a larger, less technical (and more easily bamboozled) audience. Maybe it’s to amuse me. What I do know is that fluffy nonsense like this makes me skeptical of other “research” that Trend Micro and Symantec do. I’m also fairly certain that neither Big Yellow or Little Red care much about what I think.
The conclusion of the Metro article offers this public service advice.
Parents have been urged to oversee online activity, particularly during next week’s Easter holidays.
Ya think? Let me suggest that parents should be aware of their children’s online activity always. Including Easter, Christmas and other non-Christian holidays. And non-holidays. Otherwise 40% of the impressionable little devils will grow up thinking that messing with their Facebook friends constitutes hacking. And we certainly can’t have that.
