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Lina Deen
CST 300 Writing Lab
February, 17,2019

Teaching Hacking in Schools

When most people hear the word hacker, the first thing that comes to their minds is

cyber-criminal lawbreaker an image of someone shady sitting in a basement or dark room

hacking into networks and stealing valuable information. Hacking is one of the most

controversial and misunderstood subjects since many views the word hacker as trouble and up to

no good. Nevertheless, and what most people do not know that hacking has two sides and as

dangerous, unethical hacking can be on one side on the other side ethical hacking or penetration

testing, can be not only useful but also the solution to control, reduce, and fight unethical

hacking. According to “The New York Times” who stated that to be able to fight hackers there

should be more hackers, where they argue that hackers are bad, and they create chaos have no

morals nor boundaries. However, not all hackers are chaotic and destructive, and there are a

group of ethical hackers that operate with morality respect the rules and laws and are as skilled

as the unethical hackers where their main job is conducting testing to find flaws and openings

that an unethical or black hat hacker can take advantage and attempt to breach. Thus, they use

their skills to do good and fight against harm, according to “The New York Times” who stated

that maybe the problem about hacking does not have unethical hackers but not having enough

ethical hackers.

The first attempts of hacking were known as “to hack” according to “History of Hacking”

it started as early as 1878 at the Bell phone company, but it was not known as hacking and was

labeled as “practical jokers” where young boys used to tamper with the phone lines connecting
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them to the wrong place or disconnecting them. However, in 1960 according to the “History of

Hacking” hacking took a whole new form where highly intelligent student driven by curiosity

wanted to learn more about computers and how things can be used differently to produce

different results created “shortcuts or computer Hacks.” Nevertheless, hacking developed and

became more sophisticated year after year. There are three types of hackers that possess the same

skills, abilities, and knowledge, but use them for different purposes first the ethical or white hat

hacker uses his skills to perform network security checks for vulnerability and weaknesses that a

black hat hacker can use to breach security report to the requestors to fix or fix it for them.

However, an ethical hacker needs to abide by specific rules according to “Emerging Threats

security center” before ethical hackers performing a penetration test should have a written

specific contract where he obtains a consent form the requestor to perform penetration testing a

check the level security and must avoid any circumstance that put him into a conflict of interest

situation. Second, the unethical or black hat hackers that use his skills to create chaos invade

privacy, steal valuable personal and financial information, and the third one known as a gray hat

hacker that falls in between the white and black hat hackers.

Nonetheless, a gray hat hacker is a mix of both white and black hat hackers according to

“Emerging Threats security center” that gray hat hackers, unlike black hat hacker, do not have

malicious intentions towards anyone. However, they do look for vulnerabilities in systems, and

since they do it without legal consent, it is considered illegal. Thus, they are different when it

comes to intentions and morality and according to “Maryville University “that argued in their

article about “Ethical Hacking and Morality: The Gray Area” suggested that integrity operates as

the first and most important moral virtue that differentiate ethical form unethical hacking. With

the need to have white hat hacker comes to a crucial question should hacking be thought in
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schools starting at a young age and continue through high school as any other subjects and would

it be helpful or destructive to do so on the long run.

Students, parents, teachers, and society are all stakeholders that can either benefit of or

detriment when teaching hacking in schools. However, children are the primary stakeholders

since they are the one who can be most impacted by learning hacking which can be debatable

with two possible outcomes. One is useful and beneficial and other harmful and destructive.

According to “Should Schools Teach Students about Ethical Hacking” that encouraged the idea

of teaching hacking to kids and argues in their article that kids should learn to hack in schools

especially those who are highly intelligent and curious about learning how to write codes are

learning on their own since the information is available online to everyone. Therefore, teaching

hacking in schools by professional adults such as teachers who can guide young children to

promote morality and explaining to them the concept of ethical hacking and help in supervising

and guiding a potential future black hacker. Moreover, it can have a positive impact on society

since criminal hackers are always there, and it is impossible to eliminate them. Thus, it is best

and according to “Daily Teck news and innovation” to teach hacking for students in the form of

defensive hacking also according to “opensource” teaching hacking to kids in schools can be

beneficial for kids in enhancing their skills, creativity, help them identify their feelings and

intuition.

As there are stakeholders who encourage and promote the idea of teaching hacking in

school, there are others who have their concerns and worries and according to the “Register”

who stated that universities and some security firms in the past were against the idea of teaching

hacking in school. Moreover, their main concern was that it would most likely lead the students

to the dark side of hacking which leads to an increase in cybersecurity crimes. According to the
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“professor Sam Bowne the register” who had started a class teaching student hacking that he

worried about students who act with the mentality of a hacker. Nevertheless, and according to

“opensource.com” a resistance from the school’s administration and parents is always the case

when it comes to teaching student hacking, and it is all due to the lack of knowledge and the fear

of hackers and the harm they can do. According to the “Ethics of Hacking: Should it be Taught

“where they argue that teaching hacking to young children in school can be dangerous since they

have not fully developed and are not able to make or understand ethical reasoning. Thus,

exposing them to hacking and giving them the knowledge and power of what a hacker is capable

of doing may lead those kids to end up in a black hat hacker situation which leads to trouble and

severe consequences. Nevertheless, and according to the same article which gave an example to

support their point of view of a student in the Western University in 2104 who got in trouble for

hacking into the “Canada Revenue Agency” his lawyer blamed the school for what happened to

the bright, intelligent student who had no ill intentions. However, he did not understand the

consequences since he hacked into his school system and was never held accountable or

punished for his actions.

Teaching hacking in schools to young kids can help promote and provide an extra layer

of security according to "educationdive” the schools can provide valuable lessons and

experiences that can benefit students in their life either in school or career. Nevertheless,

supporting their idea’s by using “Baltimore’s Parkville High School” who incorporated hacking

in their program that not only teaches students the way to step up a network but also the

techniques to hack the network and with educating student will help not only analyze but prevent

attacks. Hacking falls under many ethical frameworks such as utilitarianism, virtue, rights, and

deontology for stakeholders, especially children, teachers, and parents. With deontology the
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teacher's obligations and duties as educators to supervise, guide, and explain the positive impact

they can have on society when teaching children ethical hacking. Moreover, the parent's duties

not that different from teachers in adhering to teaching kids’ morality and how to be able to

make the difference between good and evil and make the right decision.

As for utilitarianism, the first stakeholders are teachers and their abilities to be able to

oversee the good and evil and predict which among their many students is a possible subject to

be drawn towards the dark side. Therefore, identify who needs more supervision and guidance so

they can work on promoting mortality while encouraging them on always doing the right thing.

For children, deontology is to be able to choose the most significant benefits and most ethical

way despite temptations either was act utilitarianism to benefit people or rule utilitarianism to do

what is right and adhere to the laws. Thus, and according to Computing and Society as stated in

“Marcia J. Wilson” that argued in an article and from a Utilitarian point of view that although

there are many concerns when it comes to hacking. However, the results are far more significant

for the welfare of others and that the pros out way the cons on the long run where ethical hacking

can be the only solution to prevent any security breaches hat. Virtue and rights operate together

while ethical rights are determined by society when it comes to what is right and what is not and

what is the acceptable ethical priority such as ethical hacking as for children who will be

growing guided to appreciate the virtue and doing what’s right when exposed to hacking in a

safe, supervised environment. Thus, and according to “Markkula Center for Applied Ethics” that

argue and from a virtue stance that many hackers have strong virtue such as “independence,

freedom of thought and expression and modesty” and they are forcing in a way corporation and

government to operate in a virtue way when using the internet; hackers are helping in promoting

virtues in society.
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Many argue that Hacking can be ethical, and it is safe to teach to children in school

according to “The ethics of Hacking: Should it be taught “that argued for and against teaching

hacking to young children. First, the article argued the benefits “instructional hacking” because

cybersecurity is a big problem, and, on the increase, it is beneficial to introduce supervised

ethical hacking to students. Nonetheless, cybersecurity jobs are in big demand, and either

hacking is taught in schools or not hackers will still exist, and kids can self-taught hacking but,

they will not care for ethics and have ethical reasoning when learning on their own. However, if

they learn it in schools and universities, it will enhance consciousness and ethics. Many fears and

oppose the idea and according to the same article “the ethics of Hacking: Should it be taught

“arguing that the major problem in teaching hacking to young students in school since they did

not reach maturity yet and did not have ethical reasoning. Therefore, kids will take hacking as a

game or an easy way to get what they want and achieve personal benefits as the same article

mentioned one student used his hacking skills to alter and improve his grades driven by the sense

of competition not understanding the danger and consequence.

In conclusion, hacking exist and is not going anywhere it is growing year after year and

becoming more advanced and sophisticated especially with the advancement of technology and

electronics. Thus, it is easy to learn since it is accessible online to be self-taught which can be

dangerous for young people who still did not reach maturity and the age of reasoning and did not

develop their connective thinking and rely heavily on emotions. Therefore, in my personal

opinion, it is best to introduce supervised hacking into the school curriculum with the right

guidance to teach ethical hacking and explain the consequences of unethical hacking. Thus,

learning ethical hacking not only will be helpful to society and reduce the number of unethical
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breaches, but young kids can also have good jobs as adults since ethical or white hat hackers are

few however in big demand.

References

Admin. (n.d.). The History of Hacking – Timeline of Hacking Techniques [Infographic] – TBG

Security – Information Security Consulting. Retrieved February 18, 2019, from

https://tbgsecurity.com/the-history-of-hacking-timeline-of-hacking-techniques-

infographic/

Dohadwalla, H. (2017). Should schools teach students about ethical hacking? Hindustan times

Retrieved February 18, 2019, from https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/should-

schools-teach-students-about-ethical-hacking/story-280ibJtb6KO3sfwIWIwzpJ.html

Herzog, P. (n.d.). How to teach hacking in school and open up education. Opensource Retrieved

February 18, 2019, from https://opensource.com/education/14/2/teach-hacking-schools-

open-education

IS1103 GRP 202. (n.d.). Retrieved (2019), from

http://blog.nus.edu.sg/is1103grp202/2012/09/11/ethical-hacking-ethical-or-unethical/
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Lemos, R. (2007). Teaching hacking helps students, professors say. The Register Retrieved

February 18, 2019, from

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/teaching_students_hacking/

Radziwill, Nicole, Romano, Jessica, Diane, Benton, & Morgan. (2015). The Ethics of Hacking:

Should It Be Taught? Retrieved February 18, 2019, from

https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.02707

Roose, K. (2017). A Solution to Hackers? More Hackers. The New York Times Retrieved

February 18, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/technology/a-solution-to-

hackers-more-hackers.html

Santa Clara University. (n.d.). Unavoidable Ethical Questions About... Hacking. Retrieved

February 18, 2019, from https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/internet-

ethics/resources/unavoidable-ethical-questions-about-hacking/

What is Ethical Hacking. (2018). Maryville University Retrieved February 18, 2019, from

https://online.maryville.edu/blog/ethical-hacking-and-morality-the-gray-area/