Should Hackers Be Used to Help the Police?

In the age of technology, some people think if it is safe to surf the net. We normally think that by having protection on a computer nothing will happen, but many times this is not enough to protect ourselves from a hacker. The criminal mind is the most impressive feature on most famous hackers, but what if we could use their minds for something helpful? Many hackers have the ability and will to help the police solve cybercrimes. The limited opportunities they are offered is what prevents them to help. Hackers should be used to solve crimes that are similar to the ones they committed; that way the police will prevent more cybercrimes from taking place and public safety could prevail.

Cybercrime and Net crime have become one of the most common types of crime on this technological era. It takes a lot of knowledge in computers and softwares to make a person a hacker. US Police departments categorize hackers to have a high intelligence, high curiosity, and facility in solving mathematical equations, MI5 and MI6 categorizes hackers as being "Half are just cyber-curious techno-junkies who would be as much at home at a hi-fi or radio-controlled modeling convention. Their uniform is part-Gap, part-grunge. A few are hardcore hackers, for whom hacking is life." (Hart, Jeremy). Therefore, police departments and other security organizations have organized a cyber challenge in order to recruit talented hackers to help them with the constant cyber threats. Recently Britain's MI5 "had already been put into practice and that fifty former hackers, many still teenagers had been hired to work at the new Cyber Security Operations Center. All of them signed the Official Secrets Act and were put through the same vetting process as any other intelligence official." (Constantin, Lucian) The act enables teen hackers to use their hacking skills without any problems with the law obviously during the time they are helping or working with the organization. The Hackers hired have given results there have been in the UK at least nine people arrested for identity theft and banking fraud. The huge success of the Cyber challenge in UK has encouraged the US in trying the same process; the Navy wants to recruit thousands of teenagers with the skills to become employees in the cybercrime division of the navy.

Like the Navy, the FBI has a cybercrime division, the difference between these two is that the FBI does not recruit hackers they use criminal hackers caught to help them solve other cyber threats. Information from security analyst Robert Siciliano gave insights about the FBI using hacking techniques on citizens. The FBI's cybercrime division is one of the most powerful and advanced security systems in the world along with MI5. FBI convinced the hackers they had in custody to create a "super spyware program called "computer and Internet protocol address verifier," or CIPAV, which has been used to investigate extortion plots, terrorist threats and hacker attacks in cases stretching back to before the dotcom [market crash]"(Siciliano, Robert). This system, created by Hackers for the FBI, proves once more that Hackers are useful if given the opportunity. FBI uses the same systems real Hackers use to deceive other criminal hackers to fall into their traps, proving once more that a Hacker can only be caught by another hacker.

Despite helping the police and other security organizations, some people think that "Hackers should just be imprisoned; giving them the opportunity to help will only cause other hackers to make bigger and worst crimes with the idea of helping the police to reduce their sentence." (Abagnale, Frank.). Although, the famous Frank Abagnale was a world know criminal he admits that committing crimes was the worst thing he had ever done and now he is out to look for hackers and criminals to make them stop but he wants them imprisoned without a chance to redeem themselves. Hackers commit crimes, they are no better than a thief, and they should pay for