Computer hacking question

[NonoZomb1e]

So, well this was a while ago. But I was talking about computers and such in english class, and a girl that I used to like said to me, "Oh well my dad hacks he showed me." And I asked how does he hack out of curiosity, and she said," He hacks into the county computers, and he is a police officer." I was thinking to myself I call BS, but I didn't say that. So I went to my dad and talked to him about it and he said that if he were to have "hacked" into the county computer JUST TO MESS WITH THEM, he said that would be a felony, and just to mess with the person on the computer. Like for real how dumb is this person. Plus you don't show a minor things like that. But it all comes down to this does she know what hacking is????

I want your guys opinions.

Thanks.

[Dat Guy]

Do you know what hacking is? It does not sound like you would.

[Dedayog]

No, she doesn't.  First off, Police Officers have access to their county's systems.  He doesn't need to "hack".

 

Second, he's not going to tell his daughter he's doing illegal deeds if that is the case. 

 

He most likely offhandedly said it and she ran with it. 

[NonoZomb1e]

Yeah that is true. That was another thing that I forgot to say that he could have access to the county's systems. It is nice ot get some clarification on  this website thank you man.

And yes I do know what hacking is, I just wanted to express that comment that she said on here.

[Bacon soup]

I just hacked this text entry box and then I hacked the submit button. I'm level 10 hacking bad ass dont mess with me  

[Tristerin]

My wife left her PC on and the browser logged on Facebook

 

Just hacked that b*tch.  

 

Get on my level.

 

[Dedayog]

Just now, Tristerin said:

My wife left her PC on and the browser logged on Facebook

 

Just hacked that b*tch.  

 

Get on my level.

 

When your wife finds out, I don't want to be anywhere near your level
 

Woman scorned > 1334 hackers!

[Jurrunio]

I dont think those hacking for the law enforcement call themselves police officers either

[Bacon soup]

Just now, Tristerin said:

My wife left her PC on and the browser logged on Facebook

 

Facebook hacked your wife. She is in Zuckerberg's Matrix now. I'm sorry for your loss.

[Tristerin]

2 minutes ago, Bacon soup said:

Facebook hacked your wife. She is in Zuckerberg's Matrix now. I'm sorry for your loss.

Yea, I use LTT as my only Social Media outlet...Linus can have me.

[MrFixitBlankFace]

“Yeah. My dad hacks.”

”He logs in to his computer”

[boey]

I don't know if you know how what hacking is, but from my (limited) knowledge of hacking, he could maybe work as a penetration tester? Weird name, but essentially companies hire penetration testers to hack into their system just to test the security of it. It pays insanely well.

 

Also, if he were to actually hack into the county system using a personal computer that's connected to the internet(while not being allowed to do so), he'd probably be tracked down pretty fast. Unless he's working for Anonymous or something, he'd probably need to get some sort malware onto the county computers to remotely access them(means that he'd either have to get them to click a link or be connected to the same internet connection as they are). I've also been told by my teachers that public VPNs(that is, those that are offered to the public, be it paid or free) do not work to try evade the law when 'hacking' a computer.

 

Note that I'm not an expert of any kind(you probably can tell) but I've learnt a little about it from my classes

[rcmaehl]

Presses F12, creates post in Chrome Developer tools, manually submits the HTTP POST request.

I am master hacker 

 

/s

[Euchre]

Someone probably watches too much NCIS and Criminal Minds. Law Enforcement and government agents in anything less than 'dark' agencies don't hack into anything without a warrant, most especially other agencies of the government. That'd lead to a trail of bureaucratic headaches for miles before getting into the criminal issues and liabilities.

 

I see people here questioning knowing what hacking is, or saying they know, but nobody offers to define it. The most commonly used legal standard of "hacking" is gaining unauthorized access to a computer (broadly applied as anything from a desktop to a cell phone) or network (broadly applied as anything from a web server to voicemail systems). So, if you look under a mouse pad or trick someone into telling you their password to log into a system they have authorized access to, you're a hacker. We in the tech enthusiast and IT professional worlds tend to think of it as much more elaborate than that, setting the bar at a much higher level - but if you look at some of the most famous hackers in the world, accepted and acknowledged by the community itself, you'll see many don't get much more elaborate than that for their biggest exploits. Adrian Lamo (RIP), Kevin Mitnick, Johnny Long, and many others have great examples of this. To the tech community, being a hacker is more about a state of mind and level of ability, regardless of the exact nature of that ability, than a specific set of skills or actions.

 

I say this because when speaking to less tech oriented people, I've had people say "So you're a hacker." and I had been saying no, that I am not. Then I remember that in my most fondly remembered adventure with tinkering with computer access, what I achieved is by that general legal standard, hacking. Now when posed with the accusation or attribution that I am a hacker, I'll say "Technically, yes - but in reality, I'm just an enthusiast." From a community point of view, I'm always looking for those things that make it possible to gain more access or modify the behavior of technology, so even then I sort of qualify. However, I don't run around boldly declaring "I'm a hacker.", because neither the layman nor the enthusiast would find it credible vs their grand expectations.

 

My bet is OP's friend is one of those layman types who believes when someone makes the bold claim, because they don't know any better.

[WkdPaul]

33 minutes ago, Euchre said:

Someone probably watches too much NCIS and Criminal Minds.

yeah, sadly, the majority out there won't realize how ridiculous this is ;

 

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, NonoZomb1e said:

So, well this was a while ago. But I was talking about computers and such in english class, and a girl that I used to like said to me, "Oh well my dad hacks he showed me." And I asked how does he hack out of curiosity, and she said," He hacks into the county computers, and he is a police officer." I was thinking to myself I call BS, but I didn't say that. So I went to my dad and talked to him about it and he said that if he were to have "hacked" into the county computer JUST TO MESS WITH THEM, he said that would be a felony, and just to mess with the person on the computer. Like for real how dumb is this person. Plus you don't show a minor things like that. But it all comes down to this does she know what hacking is????

I want your guys opinions.

Thanks.

 

It's hard to determine without the context, but a LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) doesn't need to "hack" into systems, they can get a court order and have the target hand over the data. If at that point they won't hand it over, then computer forensics specialists are called in. Foreign systems on the other hand a domestic court order has no legal jurisdiction over (otherwise I assure you there would be no piracy sites at all, no *chan sites, and evil-enabling companies like Cloudflare wouldn't be permitted to exist.) There is a reason why all the internet sewage tends to be hosted in the same Eastern European locations.

 

As far as legality goes, unauthorized access, is of course illegal, pretty much everywhere, but it ONLY ever applies to domestic computers, because you can not make a law that encroaches on another countries sovereignty. The Hong Kong/China/Taiwan/Macau situation not withstanding. This is where treaties come in. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cybercrime

 

If there is a treaty between two countries regarding how to treat espionage, hacking, etc, then the result of one citizen hacking a computer system in the other country is dealt with by whichever legal body was created by those treaties to deal with it. 

 

Domestic hacking is always covered by domestic laws. So if one's "dad hacks" into local government servers, and they do not have a pen-test contract with that government body, then that's of course illegal.

 

Many TV shows dramatize "hacking" by specialists that work for the police(CSI:Cyber), military(NCIS), or legal firms (How to get away with Murder), but this is done for time and dramatic effect. What is quickly done in "one day" on a TV show, is something that is a whole lot more boring and takes months or even years to solve.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

5 hours ago, NonoZomb1e said:

But it all comes down to this does she know what hacking is????

How can we answer that? We don't know her.

[Crunchy Dragon]

5 hours ago, Dat Guy said:

Do you know what hacking is? It does not sound like you would.

It's not a story the Jedi would have told you...

[Teddy07]

5 hours ago, Tristerin said:

My wife left her PC on and the browser logged on Facebook

 

Just hacked that b*tch.  

 

Get on my level.

 

Big mistake pal! A SWAT team has ben called to your location

[BenCamps]

First off when somebody says they are a hacker or know how to hack something, that is a very broad thing to say. To hack something is to find a way to use something in a way it wasn't originally intended to work, but it could also mean that you have the ability to do something legitimately way beyond what a typical person would expect. It also doesn't say anything about if what they do is legal/illegal or good/bad intentioned. 

 

Given that he is a police man, it makes sense has security access for county computer systems. If its a small town/county there probably isn't a large IT department and only a small number of people that need access to the small number of systems that the county has, so they might not be tight about locking things down.

If its a large county or city then you would hope things are a bit more locked down, but everyone makes mistakes. 

 

He could just be overusing is access to roadside billboards to put up silly messages to unexpected motorist, or he could be using sql injection to erase or change records in county databases.

[wasab]

Hacking isn't as glorious as it sounds. Im taking a cyber security course in which students get hands on experience reverse engineering software using GDB and then performing stack overflow and code injections.  

 

These are very tedious things to do and not to mention insanely technical. Imagine examining endless assembly code just to find one memory address you can overflow or one bug you can exploit. Not fun at all.