ETHICAL HACKING NET-185-001N Week 1

This week, one of the topics I learned about is Hacktivism.  This is primarily gaining access to computer systems without permission of the owners in order to attempt to effect social change.  I also researched jobs in IT Security.   Another topic I learned about is Ethical Hacking, the overall subject of this course.  It can be defined as running penetration tests on systems you own or have explicit permission to test for vulnerabilities.  I'd already learned about the early 'phone phreaks' such as JoyBubbles and Captain Crunch from reading about them elsewhere, they were among the first hackers ever and were exploring the telephone system for their own amusement as well as to save money on then-expensive long-distance calls.  Both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were involved in these sorts of projects (such as building 'blue-box' hardware used by 'phone phreaks') as well before they founded Apple.  From both reading various news articles (such as those on http://ArsTechnica.com and http://ZD.net ) and from previous courses, I am aware of the numerous and varied threats to networks and devices, particularly larger networks belonging to corporations, governments, and educational institutions.  I was aware that ethical hacking is used to test networks and software or hardware for vulnerabilities so that they can be addressed by developers.  I know that increasingly, as software vulnerabilities become rarer and harder to exploit, hackers are increasingly turning to social engineering to gain access to systems for their own purposes.

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