Are You Not Entertained...

How awesome was that? I mean how could you not think hackers are freaking cool? Welcome to another random blog; today we are going to talk about hackers in general and also their recent rise in notoriety in the video game industry. A hacker is a person who breaks into computers and computer networks for profit, in protest, or because they are motivated by the challenge. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground but it is now an open community. So now that you have a full understanding of what a hacker is lets talk a bit about the recent controversy in the video game industry pertaining to hackers.

Meet the man who started what I like to call the Hacker Uprising of 2011. George Francis Hotz alias geohot, million75 or simply mil, is an American hacker known for unlocking the iPhone, allowing the phone to be used with other wireless carriers, contrary to AT&T and Apple's intent.He is also noted for hacking the PlayStation 3 and subsequently being sued by Sony. After the hack of Sony, Sony took George Hotz to court. George Hotz made a video on Youtube singing a song about the "disaster" of Sony. The Sony PS3 console was hacked, or more appropriately "jailbroken", by iPhone hacker Geohot. He managed to reverse engineer his own PlayStation 3 to run homebrew applications on it. He then later released the method to the public through his site, geohot.com. Sony responded with a lawsuit and demanded social media sites, including YouTube, to hand over IP addresses of people who visited Geohot's social pages and videos; the latter being the case only for those who "watched the video and 'documents reproducing all records or usernames and IP addresses that have posted or published comments in response to the video'". In April 2011 they eventually settled out of court on the terms that Geohot was never allowed to hack any Sony product ever again. Many thought that was the end of it all but many hackers were outraged and started to emerge in retaliation to Sony's abuse of power in requesting IP addresses and their terms put on Geohot. The activist group Anonymous announced their intent to attack Sony websites in response to Sony's lawsuit and, specifically due to Sony's gaining access to the IP addresses of all the people who visited geohot's blog, terming it an 'offensive against free speech and internet freedom'. Days after the court settlement was announced hackers broke into the PlayStation Network and stole personal information of some 77 million users. Hotz denied any responsibility for the attack as did figureheads in the online collective only known as Anonymous.

Now a new hacker collective has risen up and is taking the gaming industry by storm; enter LulzSec. Lulz Security (or simply LulzSec) is a black hat computer hacker group that claims to be responsible for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of over 1,000,000 user accounts from Sony in 2011 of which only 37,500 were actually affected according to Sony. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline. It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the lighthearted messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. Since then they have hacked various game companies such as Bethsada Game Studios, Codemasters, Sony, Minecraft, and EVEOnline just to name a few.

All in all personally I have no gripe against hackers, they are a part of the internet as much as email or instant messaging. As a former hacker I respect and admire what these people do even if only for fun but it is better they do it for fun than to do it maliciously. As with most things in life there will be those who do it for the good of mankind and those who do it for the detriment of mankind. Honestly if you understand and appreciate something you become less susceptible to it so do your part to ensure you don't end up a victim. Here are a few basic tips to keep yourself protected if needs be:

1. Do not give out your IP address.
2. Don’t download any program if you don’t know what it is.
3. Secure your Wifi network if you have one.
4. Make sure you log off of any account you have on your computer before walking away.
5. Keep a secure password for everything you have.

Feel free to leave any questions or comments regarding the tips if further explanation is needed.