The Hacker Profile

"Hackers are as old as curiosity, although the term itself is modern. Galileo was a hacker. Mme. Curie was one, too. Aristotle wasn't. (Aristotle had some theoretical proof that women had fewer teeth than men. A hacker would have simply counted his wife's teeth. A good hacker would have counted his wife's teeth without her knowing about it, while she was asleep. A good bad hacker might remove some of them, just to prove a point.) ....

A hacker is someone who thinks outside the box. It's someone who discards conventional wisdom, and does something else instead. It's someone who looks at the edge and wonders what's beyond. It's someone who sees a set of rules and wonders what happens if you don't follow them. A hacker is someone who experiments with the limitations of systems for intellectual curiosity" (Scheier, 2000; 43,44).

In this section we try to create a framework to have an idea of the population we are talking about. Most of our information are from the Hacker Profiling Project (Chiesa, 2009).

It is paramount to clarify that our objective is not to stereotyping anyone and we are welcome any information you can provide to enrich this wiki.

Gender
Before 2000 - prevalence of male

After 2000 - also female (Hackses) http://www.g4tv.com/articles/43112/the-art-of-hacking/

Age
The average age is early 20's. However a hacker might start as early as 15 and continue till they feel like it.

Origin
In Chiesa (2008), it is noted that hackers come from any culture, any race any ideology, the hackers culture doesn't seems correlated with IT diffusion however it seems hackers appear to be more prevalent in urban areas. In Turgenam-Goldschmidt's research the sociology-demographic shows that the characteristics of hackers are very close to the white-collar offenders.

Education & Occupation
Some hackers have Ph.D's and have done very well for themselves in the world of academia.

"I earned my A.B. degree (1975) in applied mathematics at Harvard College, and my S.M. (1977) and Ph.D. (1980) degrees in computer science and AI at MIT. Since 1980 I have been an assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University, now on leave. Now I am a Senior Scientist at Tartan Laboratories, Incorporated". Guy L. Steel Jr. (aka gliss)

Some turn their skills to profitable use.

Kevin Mitnick (Condor) started his hacking career by manipulating the LA bus punch card system to get free rides, then became interested in blue boxes. His hacking behaviors escalated and he was eventually convicted for hacking into multiple systems of the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to view Virtual Memory System (VMS) code and stealing software from Motorola, Novell, Fujitsu, Sun Microsystems, and other companies. After serving his sentence of five years, Mitnick started Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC and is now turning a profit as a white hat.

Poulsen’s (aka Dark Dante) hacking was directed at the manipulation of radio shows and contests (he secured himself prizes like Porsches and such). Poulsen hacked also into an FBI database and viewed wiretap information on “secure” computers. After serving over four years in prison, Poulsen used his skills identify 774 sex offenders. He’s also worked hard to become senior editor of Wired News.

Some had worse outcome.

Jonathan James (aka c0mrade),became the first juvenile imprisoned for cybercrime in the United States. At an amazingly young age of 15, James specialized in hacking high-profile government systems such as NASA and the Department of Defense. In 2008 James killed himself. In his suicide note he wrote "I have no faith in the ‘justice’ system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public. Either way, I have lost control over this situation, and this is my only way to regain  control.”

Substance Abuse
Europe, Asia, Australia: beer, liquor, marijuana, hashish.

Sometimes hashish and marijuana can restrain the Hacker's excessive creativity.

Let not forget that the best trill for a Hacker is hacking.

Personal Relationship
Relationship with Parents: often conflicted, absent father, parental indifference.

Relationship with friends: they often lonely, isolated from peers and introvert. Often the reason of social withdrawl is due to the hacking addiction and the obsession with online challenges. The underground community is where they feel they belong to.

Relationship with other Hackers
The underground world is the place the Hacker might feel more comfortable in. In the hacker community they can be judged  on the basis of their ability and real life status is not important.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/22/profile-of-a-cyber-criminal-infographic/