Getting hacked is pretty much what you sign up for as soon as you start using the internet.
But amidst this cyber-criminal cesspit is a Russian man who goes by the name of 'Alexey'.
What sets him aside from the others?
The hacker breaks into people's routers to … stop other hackers breaking into them.
Although I’m sure he sounds exactly like a walking contradiction, think of him as sort of like the contemporary Robin Hood.
'I added firewall rules that blocked access to the router from outside the local network.’[1]
Alexey is actually pretty open about his hacking, and shares a lot of insider information on his blog.
(Although the lines between openness and arrogance are … potentially a little blurred.)
Responses?
Out of the thousands of routers he’s broken into, only fifty people have got in touch with him.
It wasn’t generally to express their eternal gratitude, however—the reaction across the board was pretty much outrage (with a few scattered thanks just to season the responses).
He’s labelled as a 'white hat' hacker, someone who tries to hack into systems for the greater good. But what he's doing is clearly illegal, and no doubt controversial.
Ethics is essentially one massive grey-area. To the avid followers who abide by deontology, this might be okay, because Alexey has good intentions—I mean, at least, that’s what he lets on.
There’s clearly a bit of irony at work here, but it’s an interesting case nonetheless.
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