Is Hacking Really a Bad Thing?

I recently watched this TED talk about hacking. For those of you who don't know, TED talks are recorded presentations in front of live audiences where a person talks about some topic of their choice, and hacking is the act of breaking into a computer or system. The talk in particular was about the moral compass of hacking and how something considered "evil" could be used in a constructive way. The speaker of this talk was justifying the idea of teaching people how to break into a computer or security system, and use the information gained for good.

I want you to imagine you've somehow gained access to the inner workings of some website that deals with personal information. Information that would be harmful if it got into the wrong hands (say, your credit card number). Let's say you stumble across a password database and the company has failed to encrypt the passwords with some algorithm to prevent you from stealing them. What do you do?

This is where your morals come into play, do you steal the passwords and people's money, or do you report it? Would you be able to admit that you broke the law so that the company can fix their mistakes? Some system admins may have different feelings towards you breaking into their system, regardless if you stole any info or not. I would say the majority of the people you run into would forgive your slightly illegal actions, and may even offer you a job.

People with a hacker's mindset are in short supply because hacking has a bad name. This ironically makes people who think like a hacker really popular for jobs in online security. Security systems can be better developed by those who question how to break the system. The speaker in the TED talk put it well, ask yourself how you would break into your own house, then fix the breach.