Cyborgs increasingly utilize communication technologies and mediums of cyberspace in today globalizing world. Marshall McLuhan sees no boundaries and no restrictions on who can and cannot use cyberspace. With no restrictions and no boundaries, come ghastly repercussions. These repercussions have become deadly for various theorists akin to Steve Mann. For Mann, cyberspace is becoming infective in the contemporary age of terror. Here are just 10 cyborgs who have utilized cyberspace in deadly and manipulative ways. This article argues alongside Mann’s argument that cyborgs infect cyberspace; creating battlefields as a result.
1. Al Qaeda:
Al Qaeda in Arabic means “Base”. According to Janice Stein and Robert Deibert, Al Qaeda’s nodes of communication are through the internet where funds are relocated through local exchanges with global connections. This allows top Al Qaeda officials and followers to move across the borders freely.
According to Timothy L. Thomas, the Al Qaeda also uses the internet as a virtual battlefield and as a place of planning. Just before 9/11, the organization used the internet to recruit intelligence for the master plan and to send encrypted messages over the internet. Mohammed Atta, referenced the link, “the semester begins in three weeks”.
2. Mark Zuckerberg:
He is not a good role model for social networks. He created a program called FaceMash so that people could rate the hottest looking girl in Harvard. He utilized students’ information and pictures without permission. This was way before Facebook became popular.
3. Gary MacKinnon:
MacKinnon is an unemployed systems administrator Isabel Marant Shoes Outlet from north London. He purportedly hacked into systems belonging to the US army, navy, air force, and Nasa in 2001. He scanned 73,000 machines and hacked into 97 of them.
4. Making money off Big News:
Cyborg criminals are profiting of big news of Bin Ladin’s death through spam, phishing and malware. One click to a video gives cyborg criminals access to all accounts stored on the computer.
5. Mark Abene:
Abene was known for breaking into telephone systems using a normal phone receiver. He founded the groups Master of Deception (MOD) and Legion of Deception. He was accused of crashing the AT&T phone system.
6. Mike Calce:
He is famously known as the Mafia Boy. He launched denial-of-service attacks against large corporations such as Yahoo, Amazon, Dell and Ebay. He essentially overloaded their servers until they crashed.
7. Dutch 16 year old boy:
No name was released here. However, this was one of the biggest scams in the world relating to credit cards. The attacks were targeting global credit card companies (Visas, Paypal, Mastercards). This happened in December of 2010.
8. Rouabah Basset:
This Algerian caused US$ 129,117.00 in damages when he granted himself access to Department of Security & Intelligence computers without Authorization.
9. CarderPlanet Customers:
Cyborgs come to sell and buy credit cards from this website, which originates from Odessa. They use credit card info to buy viruses, malware, Trojans to compromise computers of their victims.
10. Engineer in Taiwan:
An engineer hacked into Taiwan’s “EasyCard” smartcard system and credited himself NT$9,000 on each of three e-ticket cards. The card has operated on Taiwan’s public transit system since 2002.