What Defines a "Black Hat" Hacker?
Source: Cipherwar.com
I wouldn't be writing this story if I hadn't have received, what amounts to commercial spam, in my own inbox. I would still have felt the things I'm going to express, but I would not have gone to the trouble of writing them down and posting them on Cipherwar had I not been provoked. The question is: What Defines a "Black Hat" Hacker? In my opinion, this can be established by observing one's moral compass.
On Saturday I received an email (posted below), as I'm sure many others did, from Robert Lyttle. Who is Robert Lyttle? I had no idea, until I read the email that reminds us that he is in fact the "Pro-Napster Hacker" known as "Pimpshiz" that defaced websites in 2000 when Napster came under fire from the RIAA and Metallica. Now I remember. I shared some of his sentiments at the time, but I've never been an advocate of defacing and I felt that it only made Napster look worse to skeptics. Causing a media blitz about the "Pro-Napster Hacker" only made things worse for Napster as it associated malicious hackers with Napster. Not good. Thank you, Pimpshiz.
To receive an email from this 18 year-old former defacer claiming that he now wants to sell his own commercial security software was more than ironic, and obviously more than I could swallow without expressing my thoughts. Let me begin by pointing out that when Lyttle began defacing sites under the nym of "Pimpshiz" he left his AOL email address (pimpshizpimpshiz@aol.com) on the defacements. Evidence of this can be seen here. As many of you unfortunately know, you must have a valid paying account with AOL to receive an email address with them and it's not hard to guess that if the FBI asks AOL for personal information, they hand it right over. One would think that if Lyttle is as intelligent as he claims to be, he would have had the common sense not to post an AOL email address on a defacement. Lyttle did an interview (here) with HWA Security in 2000 in which he makes a rather large fool of himself. It's a short interview, but in essence he appears to be another publicity hungry script kiddie claiming that defacing sites, "sure as fuck was not easy rofl".
