Edward Snowden is a notorious name when it comes to hacking as he was charged by the US Government with theft of government property. He leaked to the media details of extensive internet and phone surveillance by American intelligence. The scandal broke in early June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. This case showed that not only can hackers can withhold your private information, but so can governments.
With the internet being the number one source for information, it is a hackers playground as the internet is filled with threats to online security. The amount of information that’s online, can be a danger for anyone so we need to be careful of what we have online. Botnets are the workhorses of the Internet. They’re connected computers performing a number of repetitive tasks to keep websites going. The bad thing about this though, is that they can gain access to your computer/laptop through coding which can end in your software being hacked (basically in a nut shell, adding your computer to their web).
Once the botnet’s owner is in control of your computer, they usually use your machine to carry out other nefarious tasks. Common tasks executed by botnets include:
- Using your machine’s power to assist in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to shut down websites.
- Emailing spam out to millions of Internet users.
- Generating fake Internet traffic on a third-party website for financial gain.
- Replacing banner ads in your web browser specifically targeted at you
SO WE NEED TO BE SUSPICIOUS AND CAREFUL OF WHAT THE WORLD WIDE WEB IS CAPABLE OF.
*When you realise you’re getting sent to jail for theft of government property*
Emma's Blog 
Hey Emma,
Great post for the week 12 topic of Dark Fiber. We went down a pretty similar path in the approach to this weeks blog post, focusing on a specific instance of the negative side of hacking (like how you went into great detail about botnets). It’s great that you also talked about Edward Snowden as a key figure in this phenomenon, your use of a hyperlink for his name and the background story of his case was great as well. This leads to a suggestion I have for you, I would consider using more hyperlinks in your post to add more depth, for example you could consider using a hyperlink for the word ‘botnet’ and lead to a source similar to a good one that I found here: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3240364/hacking/what-is-a-botnet-and-why-they-arent-going-away-anytime-soon.html
Keep up the great work!
– Alex
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