"Hacking is easy"

S... told me. He had the good grace to look extremely uncomfortable as he said this. We both know about his hacking and the harm it did me. Since then his punishment - turning up to get extra tuition from me and having to do some extra work on top of doing his actual homework - has turned into a sort of friendship.

It was something I definitely did not expect. I hoped he might turn into a better kid at the time. I now have hopes he might actually turn into a decent student with something other than a criminal career ahead of him. He had a lot of catching up to do despite a distinction in hacking.

S... really does know something about hacking, quite complex hacking at that. I have a sneaking suspicion that, if asked, he could hack his way into some very sensitive material indeed.

That said he seemed genuinely concerned about the recent actions of those who hacked into the Medibank site. They have been drip feeding the data onto the "dark web". I don't understand the "dark web" apart from the fact that it is somewhere I do not want to go. It sounds full of the most horrendous things. I did not ask S... whether he has explored it. I am sure he has but I now suspect it would have been out of curiosity and that what he found there would not have been of any real interest to him.

What he did say to me though was interesting, "What if someone suicides because their private information goes there. I mean like they have already tried perhaps and it is on their medical records and it gets published and then because of that they do it again and they succeed?"

"Well what do you think?" I asked him. 

He shrugged and said, "It's a bit like helping someone to kill themself I guess. I know I could do it but I couldn't do that."

I assumed he meant he could hack into the site - and I am sure he could - but he would not publish such details. I am certain he would not. He knew a boy, not much older than himself, who committed suicide earlier this year. He barely knew the other boy but it has rocked the foundations of his world.

"Hacking is like scamming," S... tells me, "It's easier than being a burglar. You can do it away from you. It doesn't feel like you're really hurting someone even when you are. It's not like taking stuff from a shop. It doesn't feel like that at all."

I was looking at him as he said this and wondering just how much shop lifting he had done and whether he had actually scammed anyone. He gave me a sheepish sort of grin and said, "I know what you're thinking but I haven't done it. I wanted to. I could have done it to my dad when I was really mad at him but I didn't. My friend J... from my other school nicked some Mars Bars from the supermarket but I couldn't eat the one he tried to give me."

Clearly moving him out of J...'s sphere of influence was a good thing. How long could he have resisted a Mars Bar? It is also interesting that he recognises that it is psychologically easier to commit cyber crime than physical crime. 

The idea that it is "just information" is so wrong. The most recent hack is causing irreparable damage. If S... chooses to "go after the bad guys" he may do much good.