Text 3 Top 10 Awesomely Impressive Computer Hackers

The concept of computer hacking is often viewed as scary or seemingly impossible to most people. It’s also generally considered annoying to anyone who remembers the obnoxious girl in Jurassic Park who claimed to be a hacker despite having no idea in generally every aspect.

Anyway, there are some people to whom hacking comes with astonishing ease, and over the years they have compiled a long list of extremely impressive hacks. Here are 10 of the best hacks and hackers in history. When you think of awesome computer hacks, chances are you assume it is something that took place in the recent past.

Number 10.

Well, what if we told you that one of our favorite hacks actually took place way back in 1981, which we’re guessing is before a lot of our readers were even born? That’s when a guy nicknamed Captain Zap decided to have a little fun at the expense of AT&T. Captain Zap, whose real name is Ian Murphy, was apparently fed up with his phone bill, so he and some buddies decided that the only logical recourse was to hack into AT&T and change the internal clocks. Why would this matter? Well, for those too young to remember, back in the day when people still used landlines, phone companies offered discounts for calls late at night. By changing the internal clock, Zap was able to rig the entire AT&T system so that everyone got those same late night discounts during the daylight hours. Also impressive? He’s the only guy on this list who inspired a Robert Redford movie (Sneakers.)

Number 9.

Kevin Poulsen is a smart guy. Over the years, he has become somewhat notorious for his computer hacking antics, but in 1991 he pulled off what has to be his most entertaining hack by far. Of course while we consider it hilarious, Poulsen might not, considering he got 51 months in prison because the judge didn’t share our sense of humor.

So what did he do to earn all that jail time? An LA radio station was holding a contest in which a certain number caller would win a brand new Porsche. Naturally, because everyone wants a Porsche, Poulsen did the only logical thing: he hacked the Los Angeles phone system to make it possible for only him and his friends to call in to the station, guaranteeing that they would be the ones who won the car. That was enough to get him over four years in the pokey.

Don’t feel too badly for Poulsen receiving those 51 months, though. He’s now an editor at Wired. Unless you hate Wired. Then you can feel bad for him.

Number 8.

To most people, hacking a website seems like it would be a very difficult endeavor. Hacking two websites? That seems near impossible to novices like us.

Now imagine hacking a dozen sites. Maybe a hundred.Or, in the case of TiGER-M@TE, how about 700,000? Yes, you read that number correctly. One hacker took down 700,000 sites, and he did it all in one shot.

In 2011, TiGER-M@TE decided to have a little fun by hacking an entire data center, taking down hundreds of thousands of domains hosted by “Inmotion”, including the Bangladesh Google site. Also included in this mega-hack were the local domains of Yahoo and Bing, but nobody noticed, because nobody uses those anyway.

Number 7.

Well, we’ve already established that the ability to hack multiple sites is pretty freaking impressive. Now imagine attempting to take down massive sites like CNN, eBay, and E*TRADE. And now imagine doing so when you’re 15, and pulling it off with tremendous ease. That’s exactly what Canadian Michael Calce did, crippling some of the biggest websites in the world for a week.

Calce, also known as MafiaBoy, racked up 56 counts of illegal hacking and ended up serving time in a juvenile detention center for his actions. Of course, these days someone was smart enough to realize that it would be much better to have him use his powers for good, so he has become an Internet security consultant.

By the way, were you wondering what exactly possessed him to perform those hacks? For starters, curiosity. That, and the fact that his friends basically triple-dog dared him to do it, saying they didn’t think he could take down CNN. Not only were they wrong, it only took him about the span of a commercial break to pull it off.

Number 6.

Chances are if you’ve ever been around a computer and the Internet, and are even vaguely aware of hackers, you’ve heard of Anonymous. Anonymous is a group of hackers who originated on 4chan, and over the years they have been at the heart of numerous high level hacks around the world. Basically, if you have your own website you should be terrified of them and pray they never get offended at something you say.

Anyway, while they often engage in anarchic hacks, they also use their powers for good. Our favorite example of this is when they decided to make it their mission to take down the Westboro Baptist Church. You know those jokers, right? Those are the tools who show up to protest the funeral of any person they can even loosely connect to gay rights or other issues they hate, mainly because they are huge tools and other, stronger words that we can’t use here.

Back in 2012, Anonymous took over the WBC website, hacked WBC’s information, and released things such as its members’ names and social security numbers. Oh yeah, they also filed a death certificate in the name of WBC spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Rogers, which would prohibit her from using her social security number. Oh, and they also changed her desktop wallpaper to shameless picture.

Number 5.

Okay, so far we’ve been talking mainly about funny or just flat-out awesome hacks that have occurred over the years. Now it’s time to get into the really scary stuff. You know, like the national security, almost starting wars type of stuff.

For instance, let’s talk about Gary McKinnon, who somehow managed to get inside the Pentagon’s computer system and steal 24,000 classified files. Yes, you read that right. He hacked into the Pentagon and stole secret files. Thousands upon thousands of secret American military files. At one point, before McKinnon was outed as the culprit, it was believed that a foreign government or maybe even a terrorist group stole the files, which definitely helped Americans sleep at night.

Number 4.

You always hear about someone’s Twitter account being hacked, mainly after a celebrity “accidentally” fires off a nude photo or a horribly racist tweet, or something along those lines. But just in case you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s not just a place for celebrities and wannabe comedians and writers. Governments around the world use Twitter as a resource, including North Korea. And, just like the celebrities that Kim Jong Un and his late father seemed to enjoy so much, their official Twitter account was hacked, along with their Flickr account.

Unfortunately for Kim Jong II, this wasn’t just a hack lightly mocking the diminutive dictator for his crazy hair or love of basketball. No, whoever hacked into the Twitter feed called for a full-on uprising against the government. To make things even better, it was right around this time that the nation’s YouTube channel was hacked with a cartoon of Kim Jong Un running people over in a sports car...

Number 3.

Mathew Bevan and Richard Pryce were two young Welshmen who, in 1996, were doing what a lot of guys their age were doing, like nearly starting World War III. Wait, you mean no one does that for kicks? Well, how about if they do it because they are trying to prove a UFO conspiracy theory?

As it turns out, that’s apparently what happened here in the mid-1990’s, when Bevan hacked Griffiss Air Force Base in New York, in order to find evidence that there are aliens and the government is hiding them from us. The hack was detected, but no one knew who was doing it or what the purpose actually was, so naturally there was panic. After all, some foreign entity was discovered sniffing around inside an official US military computer network. That’s going to raise some eyebrows, like those of Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent Jim Christy, who made that famous claim that these two Brits nearly started a new World War.

Number 2.

Okay, so even if it has been shown that places like the Pentagon and assorted military bases can be hacked, certainly no one would be able to hack into the Central Intelligence Agency, right? Seriously, if there is any organization that should be able to avoid such a thing, it has to be the CIA. Right? Okay, so maybe not. In 2011, the website of the CIA was hacked and brought down by a group called Lulz Security. We can only hope they were looking for any secret files about whether or not their cats could hazcheezburger.

Fortunately for the sake of, you know, national security, the hackers were unable to actually collect any data and were basically just showing off and saying yes, even the mighty CIA can be hacked. Lulz Security has not limited its hacking to just the CIA, though. They have also apparently been linked to attacks on the Senate, News Corp, and PBS, because we guess they decided Big Bird* needed to be taken down a peg or two.

Number 1.

And finally we come to the most well-known and infamous hacker of all: Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks. While WikiLeaks claims to release information simply from inside, anonymous sources, Assange has a long history as a hacker from his days as a teenager, and he’s been a headache for governments around the world due to his releasing of classified information into the public domain.

Assange is considered such a danger to the United States in particular, that any military personnel who make contact with him will be considered friends with “the enemy.” You know you’ve really made it as an international hacker and all-around troublemaker when the United States has officially dubbed you an enemy. Of course, he’s also set to be played by Benedict Cumberbatch in an upcoming movie, so overall we have to consider his efforts with WikiLeaks a pretty massive win for the dude.

*Big bird is 8 feet 2 inch yellow bird that lives on Sesame street (American series for children).

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