Beginning this project, I had no clue of what I wanted to do or any topic I wanted to focus on. I did a few experiments with collage, altering text and codes but I still did not know what I wanted to explore, I even made a quick text graphic expressing this and I posted it to Tumblr. As I was sitting in my chair racking my brain for some ideas, I thought of my essay that I had to write for another class. The essay is about surveillance and I thought that would be an interesting topic to explore, but more specifically hacking.
Hacking, or just the term ‘hack’, is defined as to gain unauthorised access to data in a system or computer. I find hacking really interesting as people of all ages hack and for different reasons. There are three types of hackers, black hat hackers, white hat hackers and grey hat hackers. Black hat hackers are the bad guys. They are the people who are responsible for writing malware and viruses which are used to gain access into computer systems. Black hat hackers have malicious intent hand usually do it for financial gain or to destroy the data they have gained access to. White hat hackers are the good guys. These hackers work for companies to try and find security flaws in their systems. They will ask permission to hack into their systems which makes it completely legal, then they will see k to find security faults and if they find any they will report it and the company will fix it. Finally, there are grey hat hackers who are a combination of the two previous types. Grey hat hackers will hack into a companies’ system and seek to find faults without their permission. If they have found faults they will let the company know an will ask for a fee to fix the issue. If the company does not comply, sometimes the hacker will post the exploit online.
My artwork consists of screenshots of the log in page of the Uber website and the Linkedin website. I pasted them up in a three by four orientation. I chose these two websites because they have been subjected to some very big hacks and data breaches.
In 2016, Uber was subjected to a massive data breach and the way they handled it was not good for them at all. Two hackers were able to hack into Uber’s systems and get the names, phone numbers and email addresses of 57 million customers and they were also able to obtain the drivers licences of 600,000 drivers working for the company. Uber then kept this a secret for a whole year and payed the hackers that were responsible for the breach $100,000 to destroy the data and keep it a secret. As a result of this, Uber fired its CEO because of this massive breach and making it seem like it was his fault.
In 2012, Linkedin suffered the one of the biggest data breaches in the 21st century. Hackers broke into Linkedn’s database and stole the emails and passwords of over 160 million users and were posted on a Russian hacker forum. The hacker responsible for this breach was selling this personal information for around $2000 dollars which was able to be paid in bitcoin. It took four years for Linkedin to realise that this had happened as they made it public in 2016. The reason it went on for so long was the fact that the decoding of the passwords was done very slowly and discreetly.
I decided to paste up the posters to bring the digital world to the physical world. In the digital world, thing fly under the radar very often but when it is brought into the physical world, it gets noticed a lot more as the posters look out of place and are eye catching. I chose to repeat the poster to represent on a smaller scale how many people got effected and how many people use these websites. I also decided to make the posters a screenshot of my computer to play on the paranoia people have with their web camera. Many people put tape over their web camera because they fear that someone has hacked into their computer and is watching their every move though the camera.
Taylor Armerding, 2018, CSO, accessed 13/9/18, <https://www.csoonline.com/article/2130877/data-breach/the-biggest-data-breaches-of-the-21st-century.html>
Steve Morgan, 2017, CSO, accessed 13/9/18, <https://www.csoonline.com/article/3213568/hacking/john-mcafee-ranks-the-10-biggest-hacks-ever.html>
Norton, 2018, Norton Symatec, accessed 16/9/18, <https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-what-is-the-difference-between-black-white-and-grey-hat-hackers.html>
Julia Carrie Wong, 2017, The Guardian, accessed 16/9/18, <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/uber-data-hack-cyber-attack>
Jose Pagliery, 2016, CNN Tech, accessed 16/9/18, <https://money.cnn.com/2016/05/19/technology/linkedin-hack/index.html>
Sarah Perez, 2016, TechCrunch, accessed 16/9/18, <https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/18/117-million-linkedin-emails-and-passwords-from-a-2012-hack-just-got-posted-online/>
