The stray sheep of cyberspace a.k.a. the actors who claim they break the law for the greater good

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Abstract

The development of cyberspace has brought about innumerable advantages for the mankind. However, it also came with several serious drawbacks; as cyberspace evolves, so does cybercrime. Since the birth of cyberspace, individuals, groups and whole nations have been engaging in computer-related offences of various significance and impact, trying to exploit systems’ vulnerabilities, disseminate malicious software and steal data or funds. The concept of a hacker has entered the collective consciousness and become an intrinsic element of popular culture. However, there are hackers, or rather, cyberspace actors, who challenge this common view. This paper presents three types of such people, namely hacktivists, members of cyber militias and Internet trolls. Although they all use the Internet to break the laws or rules, their internal motivations are not always utterly sinister; actually, some of them firmly believe that their actions are for the greater good. This paper is structured as follows: Firstly, the general profile of a hacker is presented. Then, the state of the art is outlined, concerning other papers dealing with the motivations behind cyber threat actors. Following that, the three aforementioned groups of cyberspace actors are contrasted with the profile of a ‘typical’ hacker. Then, the profiles of a typical representative for each of the group and their motivations are indicated, followed by the final conclusions.

Authors

• Aleksandra Pawlicki
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  ITTI Sp. z o.o.
  Poznań, Poland
• Michał Choraś
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  UTP University of Science and Technology | FernUniversität in Hagen
  Bydgoszcz, Poland | Hagen, Germany
• Marek Pawlicki
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  ITTI Sp. z o.o. | UTP University of Science and Technology
  Poznań, Poland | Bydgoszcz, Poland