1. What did you find most interesting about the NOVA program shown in class? Submit at least 500 words.
2. You must read and respond to at least ONE student’s posting with three sentences or more. You may comment or expand another student’s comments.
I found several things to be interesting while watching the Nova program. The first thing I found interesting was how long it took to find out who the hacker was. I did not think that it would be that difficult to track the hacker even though this happened many years ago.
Another thing I found interesting was how easy it was for the hacker to break into the system. He simply found a hole in the lab systems which gave him access to them. I was surprised that he did it so easily and that no one else did it since it was so easy. I am also surprised that the hacker did not try to steal more money then 0.75 cents. Most people, if they obtained access to something like that, would steal as much money as possible. However, this hacker was actually smart because he probably did not think he would get caught or that the company would even care about 0.75 cents.
The next thing I found interesting is that there was not a more secure system. Considering that the hacker got into government and military systems, you would think that there would have been premium security. Also, you would assume that the government or military would have a way of knowing as soon as someone breaks into their system. Because there was and still is so much vital and confidential information on those systems, it would be reasonable for one to make the assumption that top of the line security would have been implemented. Even when Cliff told the agencies about the hacker, they simply ignored him and acted as though it was no big deal. It makes me wonder if the agencies were just very naiive that someone would even try to break into their systems or did they just not trust Cliff. The agencies may have also been less informed about hacking back in the day because there are not many logical reasons as to why Cliff would be ignored when he was only trying to help them out.
I also thought it was very interesting how Cliff tried to figure out who the hacker was. I did not expect Cliff to have a pager that buzzed him every time the hacker went to log on. I also did not expect Cliff to do all of the complicated things he did to try and figure out who the hacker was. For example, I was especially surprised when he assigned a printer to each phone line in order to see who was getting into the system. Cliff amuzed me throughout with his outside of the box thinking and his overall passion towards the whole situation. He even went so far as to lose sleep when the hacker logged on in the middle of the night. Cliff’s dedication to the situation ended up paying off because they figured out who the hackers were.
The Nova program was very informative and it was actually interesting to see intricate ways to catch a hacker. in the second part read this person post and respond it with 3 sentences or more.