Hack to track your buddies

[1]

Image Thumbnail:

If you are glued to your computer screen with a smirk on your face, we guess it’s something beyond that mundane music download or a chat with a friend. What gives youngsters a kick these days, is hacking the Facebook or Twitter account of a friend by cracking the password. Seems like casual hacking is something that thrills many youngsters today.

For 19-year-old Computer Applications student Sahiyl Rafiq, nothing is more thrilling than ascertaining the password of his friend’s account, and laughing at his friend’s reactions when he gets to know. “Now it’s like a game for us. We often crack each other’s passwords. Once I was playing around with my friend’s account for an entire week. After much persuasion I finally gave up,” he laughs. Interestingly, a recent British survey reveals that every one out of four young Britons attempt to access the Facebook accounts of their friends.
Once in control of the account, they update wacky status messages on each other’s accounts. “The kind of comments they get is hilarious,” says Haris Jabeer, 18, a student, who just hacked into his friend’s Facebook account.
Also, most Internet users have at least once in their lifetime tried to break into into their girlfriend, boyfriend or classmate’s account.
Rishab Raj (name changed), 19, got suspicious when he often found his girlfriend online during late hours.
“I got really excited when I successfully hacked into her account. I checked it thoroughly, and was relieved as her chat history with friends proved that I was being silly and cynical,” he says.
But it may not be as funny as it sounds, warns cyber law expert Pavan Duggal. “Youngsters today don’t know what they are doing. Accessing someone’s Internet account without permission is a punishable offence by law,” he adds.
But 25-year-old techie Ankit Fadia, who is internationally renowned for tackling cyber terrorism, and started ethical hacking at the age of 12, is not at all surprised by the findings of the survey. According to him, young Indians are the most tech-savvy youngsters in the world. “Best hackers in the world are teenagers. So, schools and colleges should encourage ethical hacking by designing special courses for it,” says Ankit.
He adds that even as per Nasscom, India needs around 77,000 ethical hackers a year, but doesn’t even produce half the number. So, if young energy is utilised in the right direction, and hacking is looked beyond just mischief making, it can be a lucrative career option.