Bloodygoodgames: I watched it through and, yep, kept thinking "Why was this guy such an idiot?" I mean, creating a "relationship" with your hacker??? :)
jamyskis: You have to bear in mind that many of these hackers come from dysfunctional circumstances and any attempt to bring these bring into normal social lives is a worthy one. Many of these hackers are just angry kids who have been massively emotionally neglected by their parents, suffer from problems at school, often being bullied.
Connecting with them on a personal level is the first step in making them realise that their actions are not just sport, their actions do have consequences that do affect people.
True, but unfortunately as many of them have years of neglect and abuse behind them they're not particularly able to create relationships. One wrong word from you, and your hacking situation could end up being a lot worse.
I worked for years for an organization for abused girls and with some it was simply impossible to make much headway as the abuse had been ongoing since birth. There are some people who will never change, as I sadly learned during my couple of decades managing non-profit organizations, and that is a lot of the hackers IMO. They think it's 'cool' to do this and get off on the accolades of their buddies. It only all comes crashing down in many cases when they're finally put in jail.
I do think however the government should be hiring a lot more hackers to help prevent the hacking of government systems. Some of these kids know a lot more than the "IT specialists" the government already has. Why not make it 'cool' to actually do something beneficial. After all, it's recognition most of these kids want. Why not give it to them legally? :)
