Why we hack

I’M TICKED OFF, because my idea for Animal House 2002 has become front-page news. Like many of you, I had to laugh when I heard of the latest Ivy League scandal: Apparently, the Princeton admissions staff hacked into a Yale Web site for undergraduate applicants. But my amusement turned to horror as more details came to light and I understood just how poor Yale’s access controls actually were.

I don’t know who are dumber: the Yalies who figured that an applicant’s Social Security Number and date of birth would make a good ID/password combination (a week later, the staff was just getting around to scratching their beards and saying, “Ya know, we could have given everyone a PIN”) or the folks from Old Nassau who bragged openly about how easy it was to access the site — to the Elis’ faces, no less. Even though this isn’t likely to be the computer crime of the century — or this year for that matter — I imagine a few people at both schools feel like horses’ behinds.

(For the record, I have no direct connection to any Ivy League university. Although Gramps was proud of being Harvard ’25, he discouraged his grandchildren from applying.)

This episode just goes to show that human curiosity will win out over ethics and training, if the tempted think they can get away with it. It’s not just a characteristic of our species, but something that seems to be hardwired into most mammals. “I was just looking around; I didn’t harm anything” may well be the most popular attempt at exculpation among arrested computer intruders. Its use goes back to the days when Kevin Mitnick was still allowed near a modem.

This is why I’m convinced that stiffening prison sentences for computer intruders isn’t going to prove much of a deterrent. Spare me the rhetoric about protecting the nation’s infrastructure from terrorism. Prison rarely scares anyone who feels alienated from or disenfranchised by society. Even the teenage doorknob rattlers from the suburbs — Matthew Broderick’s character in War Games being the archetype — are likely to believe that they’re invulnerable. And at that age, power is more intoxicating than a 40-ounce.

Besides, we have enough problems already with prison overcrowding, and they’ll only get worse if corrupt CEOs start doing time. I’d rather find a way to channel the motivation and skills of nonmalicious intruders than blacklist them for life. But finding an appropriate form of community service isn’t easy either.

So is there an easy answer? No, of course not. One-size-fits-all justice is for traffic tickets. I certainly wouldn’t mind holding jail time over the head of a nonmalicious intruder as a stick, but I’m trying to figure out what’s going to serve as a carrot. After all, how many people really subscribe to the idea of employing a thief to catch a thief?

But if nothing else, it gives me another idea for a movie. I have a vision where The Dirty Dozen meets The Matrix, but with Chris Rock in the Jim Brown role.