After conducting research for Case Project 12-1, you have gathered a lot of back

Question

After conducting research for Case Project 12-1, you have gathered a lot of background about the release of information on hashing algorithms. Articles on vulnerabilities of SHA-1, MD4, and MD5 abound. The proliferation of programs for breaking DVD encryption codes and the recent imprisonment of an attacker who broke Japan’s encryption method for blocking certain images from pornographic movies have raised many questions on what’s moral or legal in releasing information about hashing algorithms. Based on this infor- mation, write a one- to two-page report addressing moral and legal issues of releasing software or code for breaking these algorithms. Your paper should also answer these questions:

• Should people who are able to break a hashing algorithm be allowed to post their findings on the Internet?

• Do you think the reporters of the DVD (DeCSS) crack were exercising their First Amendment rights when including the source code for breaking the DVD encryption key in an article?

What about displaying the source code on a T-shirt? • As a security professional, do you think you have to abide by a higher standard when sharing or disseminating source code that breaks hashing algorithms? Explain.

Explanation / Answer

Cyber security is a very important aspect of digital world. Without cyber security our sensitive data is at risk. Its very important that companies keep our system safe by spotting any security vunerabilities.
The best way to spot these vunerabilities is by trying to break the system and the best prople who can do this are hackers. When we talk about hackers there are various type of hackers: Hackers who try to use these vunerabilities for their favour by trying to gain financial advantage.
There are also ethical hackers or bounty hunters who try to break the system. These ethical hackers help companies to make their system better by telling them about there system's weak spots.As a result they sometimes also get cash rewards from these companies.
Between these two type of hackers there is another type which is a type of ethical hacker but instead of telling the companies about their vunerabilities they release the source code to break that algorithm. As a result the companies are badly affected because the other unethical hackers try to exploit these vunerabilities.
This kind of behavior could have a very negative impact on company's business and might lead to job losses and chaos. It also encourages other people to imitate this kind of irresponsible behavior.
This is not an appropriate behavior and should be discouraged by making strong laws against it. The hackers should tell about company's system vunerabilities to company only. The right to freedom doesn't give ypu permission to attack the livelihoods of innocent people. This kind of behavior should be classified under the category of personal vandetta. People should become more serious and they should report immediately to police if they find this kind of source code floating around on internet.

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