Annotated Bibliography
Chandrika, V. (2014). Ethical Hacking: Types of Ethical Hackers. International Journal of
Emerging Technology in Computer Science & Electronics, 11(1), 43-48.
https://www.ijetcse.com/
This article breaks down the term “hacker”, describes how ethical hackers can be
categorized, and the breaks down the general intentions of each category. The article
covers ten different types of hackers, including less-talked about tyes such as blue-hat,
“hacktivists”, and spy hackers, which will be thoughtful sub-topics of discussion for my
paper. Chandrika is a lecturer at the KBN college in Vijayawada, India.
Falk, C. (2004). Gray Hat Hacking: Morally Black and White [Unpublished Manuscript]. Center
for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, Purdue University.
This article applies and identifies ethical objections from four different ethical theories to
gray-hat hacking: utilitarianism, kantianism, virtue ethics, and Aristotle’s theory. Overall,
the author forms the opinion that gray-hat hacking is not ethically justified. Since the
majority of other articles I have found have supported the ethicality of hacking, this one
will provide some good contrasting opinions for my paper.
Gaia, J., Sanders, G. L., Sanders, S. P., Upadhyaya, S., Wang, X., Yoo, C. W. (2021). Dark Traits
and Hacking Potential. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 21(3), 23-46.
https://doi.org/10.33423/jop.v21i3.4307.
This article analyzes the psychology that drives a hacker’s mind and what
motivates/demotivates hackers, and attempts to identify common and/or predominant
psychological traits among hackers. The findings of this article offer insight into the mind
of a hacker, which may be a factor in justifying why hacking may or may not be
considered ethical in my paper.
Jacquet-Chiffelle, D.-O., Loi, M. (2020). Ethical and Unethical Hacking. The Ethics of
Cybersecurity, 21, 179-204. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29053-5_9.
This article gives a brief introduction that describes and compares the various kinds of
hacking, such as that of white, gray, and black-hat, and compares the history of earlier
and modern hacking, before going in depth of the ethicality of hacking. The article
provides some interesting insight into how different theories (especially Kantianism) play
into whether hacking is classified as ethical, which will be a useful point of view to study
for my paper. The article is also very recent, which is good because technology and the
definition of hacking is rapidly progressing, which results in articles losing relevance
quickly. Both authors of the article are based in Switzerland: Jaquet-Chifelle is a
researcher for the University of Lausanne, and Loi is the head of the Digital Society
Initiative and a professor at the University of Zurich.
Omoyiola, B. O. (2018). The Legality of Ethical Hacking. IOSR Journal of Computer
Engineering, 20(1), 61-63. https://dx.doi.org/10.9790/0661-2001016163.
Omoyiola is a professor of Computer Science at Walden University, specializing in
cybersecurity. The article is brief, however Omoyiola gives a very descriptive summary
of how “ethical hacking” is defined, its uses, and several instances when it has been used
to fight crime. I foresee that this article will be helpful in my research as it provides
useful facts and real-life examples of ethical hacking, which I will discussing heavily
throughout my paper.
Martin, C. D. (2017). Taking The High Road: White Hat, Black Hat: The Ethics of
Cybersecurity. ACM Inroads 8(1), 33-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3043955.
This article relates the ACM Code of Ethics and the ISSA Code of Ethics with how
different types of hackers (white-hat, grey-hat, black-hat) operate, and examines how
these types of hackers tend to breach or stay within guidelines. This relationship between
the way hackers operate and the two different codes of ethics is another factor I can study
to determine whether hacking is ethical for my paper.
Pashel, B. (2006).Teaching Students to Hack: Ethical Implications in Teaching Students to Hack
at the University Level. InfoSecCD '06: Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference on
Information Security Curriculum Development, 1(1), 197-201.
https://doi.org/10.1145/1231047.1231088.
In this journal, Pashel explores how hacking can be “ethically” taught to students, and the
measures that could be taken to prevent misuse. Pashel concludes that the education of
hacking is a legitimate way to strengthen a student’s knowledge of cybersecurity. This
article is a part of Pashel’s findings while completing his Master’s Degree in Information
Systems at Kennesaw State University.
Radziwill, N., Romano, J., Shorter, D., & Benton, M. (2015). The Ethics of Hacking: Should It
Be Taught?. Software Quality Professional, 18(1), 11-15.
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1512.02707.
Radziwill earned her PhD in Technology Management & Quality Systems from Indiana
State University in 2009, and was an associate professor in Data Science & Production
Systems at James Madison University for 11 years (including the time at which the article
was written and published). The article explores the value of hacking and having
knowledge of hacking, as well as the controversy surrounding the topic (and whether or
not it should be taught as a part of cybersecurity classes). Overall, while the article
thoroughly discusses pros and cons, it generally argues in favor of the previous points
mentioned, so it will be a useful source to reference if I also conclude that hacking can be
considered ethical.
Shrivastava, V. (2013). Need of Ethical Hacking in the Online World. International Journal of
Science and Research, 2(4), 529-531. https://isjr.net.
Shrivastava is an Assistant Professor at the ITM College in Rajasthan, India. Throughout
this article, he examines the statistics of cybersecurity crimes such as the frequency of
each type of data being stolen (ex. Credit card, personal information, etc.) and how
ethical hacking has impacted and/or lowered these numbers when put into practice. While
this article doesn’t analyze the ethicality of these practices, it summarizes important
information about how impactful ethical hacking can be.
Steube, G. (2004). A Logistic Regression Model to Distinguish White Hat and Black Hat Hackers
[Doctoral dissertation, Capella University]. Proquest Information and Learning Company,
https://go.openathens.net/redirector/gatech.edu?url=https://search.proquest.com/dissertati
ons-theses/logistic-regression-model-distinguish-white-hat/docview/305042204/se-2.
This dissertation was presented in partial fulfillment of Steube’s Doctor of Philosophy at
Capella Unviersity, and it studies in great detail the different philosophical aspects of
hacking and how each type of hacking may be defined based on these aspects. Since the
term “ethical” can rarely be fully defined, and is generally presented as a vague bracket
on a continuum. The findings of this article will help me decide where to draw a line on
that continuum in terms of when hacking is considered ethical. The article is heavily
philosophy based, rather than statistic-based, like many of the other articles in this
bibliography. It presents some very in-depth analysis and another unique point-of-view of
the topic that I can form my own opinion upon.
Thomas, G., Burmeister, O., & Low, G. (2018). Issues of Implied Trust in Ethical Hacking. The
ORBIT Journal, 2(1), 1-19, https://doi.org/10.29297/orbit.v2i1.77.
This article discusses the implications associated with the practice of ethical hacking.
Since it is a relatively new practice, there are no defined rules or code that must be
followed to ensure a safe and uniform experience and outcome for both the employer and
the hacker. The article highlights cases where hackers have misused the information that
they gained access to via this process.
Wilbanks, L. (2008). When Black Hats are Really White. IT Professional, 10(5), 64-65.
https://doi.org/10.1109/MITP.2008.113.
This article retells the story of how a major annual black-hat hacking convention evolved
into one of the world’s largest cybersecurity conferences. The article then continues to
describe how hacking has been shaped over the years as technology develops, and the
goods and bads that have come from it. While this article is on the relatively old side, it
provides a good timeline of the major events surrounding the topic of hacking up to the
date it was published.