The Cracker

aka: Grey Hat Hacker

"HACKING IN PROGRESS...
UNATCO... HACKED
AREA 51... HACKED
Statue of Liberty... HACKED"

— Mega64, Deus Ex Tribute

The dark counterpart to the Playful Hacker, the cracker is a computer criminal. He may never leave his dark, monitor-lit room, but he can destroy lives and impoverish millions with his miraculous but misused skills, because Everything Is Online. With his Magical Computer, the cracker can break into the CIA, spy on anyone, cause train wrecks and airplane crashes, bankrupt entire nations, and most dramatically, practically wipe a person off the face of the earth by zeroing all his identity and credit records (because, of course, birth certificates in Hollywood are always null and void). He delights in mayhem and never objects to lining his pockets with money untraceably transferred from someone else's bank account.

Crackers are often called "hackers", but this is more a product of outsider confusion and sensationalist media than reality. Those within the subculture often insist that the term "Hacker" is a value-neutral term that means "people who are skilled at making computers do things outside their original specifications".^note The term cracking refers explicitly to the criminal/malicious subset of hacking. It probably originates from safecracking. A "crack" often refers to a patch for a program that bypasses some lockout intended to keep users away, such as DRM.

Because authorities never know any better, and because the cracker is so good at hiding his trail, they often chase the innocent Playful Hacker who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But in the end, the cracker will come to a bad end, either arrested by the authorities, murdered by his employers/partners or electrocuted by his equipment.

In security informatics, the real-life analogue of this character is sometimes called a "Black Hat". This is derived from old western movies based on the colour of villains' hats, which people basically made up from whole cloth decades later. There, the opposite term is "white hat". There's also the "grey hat", which doesn't entirely fit into either camp.

In certain circumstances, the Cracker might be a Mad Scientist, since their abuse of computer technologies and security loopholes qualify for the Mad Science, which a typical scientist wouldn't do. See also Tech Bro for another {usually negative} portrayal of the computer and tech geeks.

Not to be confused with the crime show starring Robbie Coltrane, or the derogatory term used for white trash,^note However, crackers stereotypically tend to be holed up in their room, so both senses of "cracker" might apply. The ambiguity might therefore be deliberate. or cowboys of central Florida, or those things with the gunpowder in you pull at Christmas, or those biscuit-like things people eat with cheese.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Akudama Drive: This is Hacker's primary role in the Akudama group. He even manages to find a way to hack and get rid of his bomb collar as well.
• Dengeki Daisy: The plot is driven by a mysterious cracker.
• Digimon
  • Digimon Adventure 02: The Digimon Kaiser, using his programming skills to conquer the Digital World.
  • Digimon Tamers: Mitsuo Yamaki, whose goal is to seek and destroy Digimon (at first). Inverted that he's working for the government, and using his skills to stop what he considers an abomination to existence.
• Get Backers: Makubex paired his computer skills with Infinity Fortress's warped reality to set himself up as a dictator. He escaped karmic death with a Heel–Face Turn.
• Lady Jewelpet: In the backstory, Luea hacked into the school's system to insert an illegal student (Lillian) at the behest of Joker as part of their plan to instill chaos in the Lady system and Jewel Land.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS: The Numbers Cyborgs had two crackers as part of their team. Uno, who could break into any computer without being detected as part of her intelligence gathering capabilities, and Quattro, who can screw up any computer as an extension of her illusion skills.
• My Hero Academia: Gentle Criminal's partner-in-crime La Brava is an expert at cracking security using her innate superb hacker skills, though she probably is the least villainous version of the trope since all she does is simply getting Gentle a safe entry or getaway to remain uncaught. It is somewhat Played for Drama when their target is U.A. High, only because students are preparing for a festival at the time but the conditions to keep it going are so demanding that even one false alarm would cancel the whole thing.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Chachamaru took this role during the Mahora Festival arc, hacking into the school's security main computer to screw around with the communications network and shut down the barrier around the school that prevents Chao's Evas demon-powered Humongous Mecha from working. The level of her skill forced Playful Hacker Chisame to form a Pactio with Negi and gain the abilities of a Technopath.
• Psycho-Pass: Choe Gu-Sung apparently conceives all the technical means to Makishima's schemes.

Comic Books

• Bookhunter features 1970's-appropriate hacking: The criminal uses the phone lines to break into and alter the library's computer records.
• The DCU
  • Psyber-Rats are a rare example of a kind-of-heroic version; they hack for criminal purposes, rather than just the fun of it, but they see themselves as Just Like Robin Hood.
• Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand: As Mara tries to escape from Coruscant after falling out with the State Sec, Imperial computer technician Tal Burren works to track her movements and adjust security technology procedures to hinder her (although he also makes sure to take steps to avoid killing other prisoners while releasing gas). He casually negotiates one promotion after another as a reward for each innovation.

Comic Strips

• Oliver Wendell Jones in Bloom County is both this and a Playful Hacker, depending on his mood; he has often done things that have caused chaos on a national — or global — scale but has occasionally also done things to benefit people. And sometimes he messes it up too. For example, one time, in a strip released in the early 1980s, he hacked into the headquarters of Russia's state-owned newspaper and changed the headline to what he thought was, "Gorbachev Urges Disarmament! Complete! Total!". What he had actually changed it to (his translation being rather off) was "Gorbachev Sings Tractors! Turnips! Buttocks!"

Fan Fiction

• The Secret Return of Alex Mack: P$ychon4ut is highly skilled, but enough of a jerk (serial killer, actually) that a group of other high-level hackers came together to get him jailed before the story started. The authorities didn't actually know about his computer skills when they put him away. The Collective breaks him out to work for them.
• The Shadowchasers Series has Shadowjacks, hackers who can use magical skills in combination with technology to surf the net. Not all Shadowjacks qualify for this Trope, but many do. One fic in the series, Shadowchasers: Torment, mentions Black Jack, the greatest Shadowjack of all who clearly fits this Trope, although eventually he had to flee the country and hide out in some place with no extradition treaties after his intrusions were discovered. Still, he's willing to help any other Shadowjacks with the knowledge to find him, his skills at hacking so great, he was even able to find information on someone who was assigned to Area 51.
• Three Months a Fox has Ricker Tavy, a sociopathic mongoose who, before being captured by The Purpose to design a sophisticated cyber-spy network to track and monitor the movements of every predator in Zootopia, was a hacker who made a living selling his considerable skills to whoever was willing to pay, regardless of the illegality.
• In the Turning Red fic Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Howard Mitchell is an expert hacker, being the one who was able to track Mei's location almost accurately, and also ruin Xia's experiment while making it look like a success simply because he found them horrific.

Film — Animated

• In The Bad Guys (2022), Ms. Tarantula, a.k.a. "Webs", is the hacking specialist of the titular Caper Crew. In the bank robbery at the start of the film, she hacks the street lights to give Mr. Wolf and Mr. Snake a clear path while blocking the cops. She also hacked the dispatch, blurred their satellite imaging, grounded their helicopter, and ordered a birthday cake to be delivered for Mr. Snake.
• In Incredibles 2, the Screenslaver has all of the makings of an onscreen, fully-masked cracker super-villain V for Vendetta-style, hacking into various screens to hypnotize people.

Film — Live-Action

• Die Hard
  • The first film features Theo, the wisecrack-spouting computer tech who cracks through all but the final layer of corporate security. He's a more realistic example than most, however, since his "cracking" consisted of figuring out the password for the first layer, then taking a big power drill to the next five. He outright admits he can't break the final layer due to the electromagnetic seal which is what Hans's desire for the FBI to cut power to the building is all about.
  • In Live Free or Die Hard, the main villain is a rogue cracker, while the sidekick is more of a Playful Hacker.
• Ozzie from Masterminds (1997) starts off this way, downloading a game before it goes on the market to sell illegal copies. Later, though, he turns more Playful Hacker when he attempts to foil Bentley's hostage plot.
• The Big Bad of Ratter is a creepy hacker who cracks through all the main character's devices to stalk her. The entire film is shown from his perspective, through all the different cameras surrounding the lead.
• In Second Tour, miss Pove is a journalist who calls a stereotypical dark hacker to do shady things for her.
• In Superman III, Richard Pryor, of all people, plays a wage-slave who gets some basic computer training and is soon able to crack into anything. The character was originally supposed to be Brainiac in disguise, explaining his abilities, but Executive Meddling turned the character into comic relief.
• In Swordfish, Hugh Jackman plays a computer criminal who got caught cracking CARNIVORE, went to jail, and is banned from using computers ever again. He's hired/forced to break into computers for John Travolta at the risk of his daughter's life.

Literature

• Battle Royale: In a slightly more heroic example, formerly Playful Hacker Shinji Mimura decides to use his skills for something a bit more serious after being forced into the Program. In all three versions, he attempts to hack into the government's computer system to disable the collars in order to make an escape attempt: he is caught in the manga and novel versions halfway through his plan due to the microphones in the collars; but in the movie, he does succeed in doing so. His uncle, particularly in the manga version, is also an example of this trope. It is revealed at the end of the novel version that Shogo Kawada hacked into the computers before the Program in order to get the specs for the collars. Whether this makes him a Playful Hacker or The Cracker is up to the reader.
• Blue Box: Sarah Swan in this Doctor Who Expanded Universe novel by Kate Orman. She's a dark legend in the small world of 1981 computer hackers; a powerful businesswoman who became first a phone-phreaker and then a hacker to gain power over others, and who uses her skills to destroy anyone who crosses her.
• A Magitek example in The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump - the "computer" is a glass screen that projects a spirit who looks and acts like a fussy librarian. "Cracking" consists of spiritual tortures, beginning with hellfire, to make him reveal information to unauthorised persons.
• Chocoholic Mysteries: The antagonist of Mouse Trap turns out to be one of these, who'd unleashed viruses on groups they didn't approve of and later used them on several people in order to try and cover up evidence of their crimes.
• Curse of the Wolfgirl: Albermarle is the werewolf hunter's Cracker in this Lonely Werewolf Girl novel. If only he had kept to the mission instead of playing Stalker with a Crush to the woman who rejected him in college he might have been more successful.
• In Catherine Jinks' Evil Genius Trilogy, Doctor Vee (AKA The Virus) is a consummate example of a Cracker, having built a nasty reputation on the creation of fabulously destructive viruses. As such, the Axis Institute employs him as a teacher to the hero of the story, Cadel.
• The Smoking Gnu in the Discworld book Going Postal go from Playful Hackers to a noble version of this after they realize that, having discovered a way of sending code that physically damages the equipment, they can try to use this dangerous code to destroy the system from the inside out until the Corrupt Corporate Executives in charge are forced to abandon the company at a loss, allowing people who want it to work rather than make money to swoop in and magically fix everything (Moist eventually comes up with a plan that will accomplish the same goal without ending up with the company back under similarly predatory investors).
• Maul: Lockdown: Izhsmash is an experienced computer criminal whom Maul enlists to hack into the computer database that selects who fights in the Gladiator Games.
  Maul: You're a renegade programmer. A data thief. Word is that you wrote the original cryptoviral code for that attack on the Phage Network.
• In The Mental State, the inmate nicknamed 'Sbekz' is highly adept at computers. Apparently, he used to be a cyber-terrorist prior to his arrest. He assists the main character in hacking into the prison's security system and also rigs his computer with a booby trap to protect it from other hackers.
• Despite being the protagonist of Neuromancer, Case is more this than Playful Hacker — he takes a very cold and methodical approach to his job that Molly remarks on as unusual.
• Dulcinea Anwin of Tad Williams' Otherland series, is a Black Hat, a criminal hacker who breaks into systems for fun and profit. Used to working for nefarious employers, she's always managed to remain aloof from the dark side of her profession, but she bites off more than she can chew when she hires herself out to John Dread, and learns just exactly how bad bad really is.
• The Sister Verse and the Talons of Ruin has Diana and Elliot, who make a living through black hat hacking. Their heist in the story has them acquiring and selling the password hashes of a banking conglomerate.
• The Spectrum in the second Spaceforce (2012) book is a notorious cyber-criminal who is hired by terrorists to hack into security cam recordings to cover the kidnapping of an alien prince. Before being forced to reform, series protagonist Andri did much the same kind of thing.
• In Vernor Vinge's classic novella, True Names, all the members of The Cabal fall into this category as well as the Playful Hacker. They're all prankers, but they're all criminal prankers. Some are more criminal than others, so we eventually get to a Dueling Hackers climax.
• Danny in Wizardry Compiled and subsequent books is both Lovable Rogue and Playful Hacker. He started with editing game character files, then cracking protection of games he couldn't afford, and by 16 was a competent self-taught programmer. His colleagues distrust him early on but recognize the talent. And need to watch lest he get carried away.
  "Yep, it's an 800 number. Direct line to the Wizard's Keep from any phone in the USA. Just don't use it unless you really need to."
  [...]
  "Is this legal?"
  Wiz hesitated. "Like I said, it was one of Danny's projects."

Live-Action TV

• In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Skye started out as a member of a hacktivist organization called the Rising Tide that opposed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrecy, before she was captured by S.H.I.E.L.D. and recruited for her skills in the pilot. Another first season episode featured a second Rising Tide hacker who was more antagonistic to "the Man" but overall portrayed as kind of naïve and gullible, as he sold out for a big paycheck on one job and his client had successfully fooled him into thinking they were benevolent or at least benign. We're not sure how "evil" the Rising Tide is as a whole — Skye's heart is in the right place, at least — but taking on an international security organization puts you closer to this than a Playful Hacker. In any case, they've been forgotten since Skye became completely loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D..
• Avon in Blake's 7 was initially this: he met the revolutionary hero in jail where he was sent for a massive computer-aided fraud. As the series went on he got better at combat but he never lost his hacking skills.
• Christopher Pelant, self-proclaimed "Hacktivist" and recurring villain in Season 7 of Bones, combined this trope with Serial Killer. He used his computer savvy to frame Dr. Brennan for one of his murders.
• In Breaking In the main character was one, using his skills to hack into his university's system to take classes for free.
• Crash Zone has "Sabretooth", whose identifying mark is leaving a teeth-mark image on the websites of the hacked companies. It turns out to be Lisa Grey, a reputable security expert.
• Many of the villains on CSI: Cyber qualify, and two of the heroes are former crackers who have reformed (more or less willingly).
• Nevel, a villain from iCarly, repeatedly breaks into and causes problems for the iCarly.com website.
• Intergalactic: Verona is a cyber hacker who used her skills to steal and breaks out on the prison transport with other women by hacking its system.
• On Leverage, Chaos Manson has this role, contrasted with Hardison's playful hacker style. The CIA calls him the Kobyashu Maru.
• Person of Interest: Root, a misanthropic genius with an obsession with the Machine, and has the computer skills to provide a perfect nemesis for Finch. Oddly enough, she actually becomes a heroic character by the fourth season, as she becomes redeemed through her work for The Machine and her cooperation with the rest of the heroes, especially Finch.
• Seeing as the Monster of the Week in Power Rangers Zeo were all robots, it was natural that there'd be one who could do this. Mean Screen was created with the intent to crash every computer system in the city and could infect a system with a virus by just looking at it. (And seeing as the Rangers used computerized weaponry, this was rather dangerous. Still, he wasn't able to counter an anti-viral program that Angel Grove High's resident computer whiz had thought up.)
• In Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad and its Japanese counterpart, Denkou Choujin Gridman, one of the main villains is a cracker who creates computer viruses that are then brought to life by the evil sentient AI program he partners with, and are then sent into various electrical devices, causing problems the protagonists then have to solve.
• Wonder Woman (1975): Bernard Havitol in "I.R.A.C. is Missing" stole multiple entire computer systems, including I.R.A.C.! Essentially magically, he transferred I.R.A.C. into a computerized briefcase.

Pinball

• Heist!: Liz Sterling is a heroic example, using her hacking skills to take down Mr. Big's criminal empire.

Professional Wrestling

• Kevin Kelly lost audio during one of his updates in a Ring of Honor match before the camera view switched to Marty Scurll, who promised to bring villainy back to the promotion. Kelly, for his part, was simply amused and saved Scurll's "additions" for use in Scurll's debut video packages later in the year.
• After Kevin Steen was kicked out of Ring of Honor by El Generico, Steen would hack into the ROH message boards.
• A baby face example was Matt Hardy's electronic high jacking Vendetta Pro Wrestling at the end of 2013, due to the fact one of Vendetta's founders and disputed owners, Billy Blade, had a history of enmity with Hardy, including assaults on his girlfriend and was a Politically Incorrect Villain to boot.

Tabletop Games

• Deckers in Shadowrun, who use their tools to enter virtual reality Cyber Space and wage hand-to-hand combat with security devices. Depending on edition, the Decker may do all the work off-site from his/her Hacker Cave while the rest of the team is on a run, or be forced to come along in meatspace to hack things on the fly.

Video Games

• The Chinese Hacker from Command & Conquer: Generals, whose job is to crack bank accounts and steal their money. While vulnerable they also can generate infinite money (like GLA Black Markets and USA Drop Zones). They even got a specialized structure to help them out in the expansion.
• Dennis from Double Homework can do just about anything computer-related from his Hacker Cave, from catfishing his classmates and teachers, to writing fraudulent programs for his dad's online casino, to creating spyware with cartoonish instructions so even a computer novice can use it.
• In Horizon Zero Dawn, the super-AI GAIA had several subordinate AIs dedicated to special tasks in the mission to re-seed Earth with life after the Robot War. MINERVA was the one tasked with hacking into the operative systems of the Faro Swarm and shut them down, which was thought impossible prior to her creation.
• Anonydeath from Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. He is based on Anonymous (see below), but he also skirts around being a Playful Hacker.
• Schatten from MapleStory 2 is a grey-hat hacker working for Dark Wind who engages in what she calls "morally justifiable crime". She unleashes viruses and hacks into corporate servers to glean their secrets, and she's said to have done even shadier things in the past, but the Maple Alliance tolerates her criminal activities so long as she limits her targets to those aiding the forces of darkness.
• The main villains of Metal Slug 4 are a group of cyber-terrorists called the Amadeus Syndicate.
• Seven from Mystic Messenger is a good guy, it's just that the shady secret agency he works for is dubious at best and malicious at worst, judging by how he describes the people he works with as dangerous and underhanded, and that he compares hackers in general to cockroaches. The only reason he works for them is that the total anonymity that it provides allows him to stay out of his father's line of sight, an extremely corrupt politician who'd like to see he and his twin brother Saeran dead to hide the fact that they're his illegitimate children. Seven intended to go back for Saeran once he joined the agency and was finally safe, but all agents are required to have no familial ties, so he couldn't contact him at all, lest he or Saeran be tortured or killed for breaking the rule.
• Sombra from Overwatch serves as the technical mastermind for Talon, and her actions have included destroying the goodwill towards one of Mexico's most powerful CEOs by leaking (possibly fake) reports of corruption, and personally blackmailing another extremely powerful CEO in Russia after uncovering some unquestionably shady practices. Her hacking also is a huge gameplay element, where she can use it to prevent enemies from using any of their abilities.
• Resident Evil: Ada Wong is known to be skilled at hacking, due to her line of work. She's used various gadgets, in addition to computers and laptops, to hack into operating systems so she can compromise them or even bend them to suit her needs. Her employer varies, as she's a freelance spy, but her employment history has always been shady organizations with plans to either end the world or take it over.
• Saints Row: The Third has Matt Miller, leader of The Deckers, official hacker of The Syndicate and a personification of the G.I.F.T. In Saints Row IV however, he made a Heel–Face Turn after being offered amnesty by MI6.
• Bentley of Sly Cooper is a computer/tech expert for the Cooper Gang who can hack just about anything that can be hacked.
• The game Uplink. Breaking into computer systems to steal or destroy information, destroy systems, or worse is just another paying job for you. The game even gives you a Neuromancer rating that is your alignment; scrapping systems For the Evulz and ruining people's lives decreases it.
• Watch_Dogs is the Hacker version of Grand Theft Auto — cause traffic accidents, steal thousands of dollars, and get innocent people arrested all from twenty feet away. Press and hold Q to cause mayhem.
• In Watch_Dogs 2, the protagonists are supposedly grey-hat hacktivists who use their abilities to out corporate and political corruption (though the player is still free to unleash chaos like Aiden in the previous game). Their rival group "Prime_Eight" plays this even straighter, being black hats who work with criminals solely for profit.
• The Combat Hacker tree for the Specialist class in XCOM 2 is only a criminal because they are part of La Résistance against a Vichy Earth, but it doesn't make them any less prone to causing computer mayhem on the alien ranks. Anywhere from lethally Skulljacking enemy troops with blades to extract useful intelligence before killing their enemy, to shutting down or controlling enemy robotic units to messing with the enemy tactical awareness network to disorient or mind control enemy ground troops, these guys and gals do not play fair by any sense of the word.

Webcomics

• Sollux (aka twinArmageddons), one of the Trolls from Homestuck, takes this to Serial Escalation levels. He's apparently so good at hacking and writing code that he can make computers explode and place curses on the victims. He also is capable of adapting alien software and technology into a reality-warping game. He also later writes a program that allows Terezi to use Trollslum to directly contact Doc Scratch. Who lives on the moon. And uses a typewriter. And is actually far in the future.
• In Not a Villain, hackers have caused much mayhem and destruction in the past, so they're the object of paranoia and Witch Hunts.
• In S.S.D.D. the "dirty half dozen" recruited by GCHQ for the Oracle project consisted of four Boxed crackers and a phone phreak. As of 2019, half the crackers are back in jail for using the Oracle to commit more crimes, one randomly got hit by a bus, the fourth got knocked down an elevator shaft by an Oracle-controlled Roomba, and the phreak escaped from the hospital after the Oracle tried to kill him and is in hiding.
• Amy Sauce from Unwinder's Tall Comics. She claims that she's wanted by the FBI for her activities. At another point, a telepath tried to read her mind, and she proceeded to hack his brain.

Web Original

• Noob has Tenshirock, who wants to "free" people from MMORPGs and interacts with players via an avatar.
• In RWBY, Arthur Watts takes this role. He's one of Salem's Co-Dragons and his main role in the group is to give them control of whatever technology they need. Watts was the one who created the Black Queen virus used by Cinder Fall to turn Ironwood's Mecha-Mooks against the heroes, and later made Tyrian's tail prosthetic. His finest moments come during Salem's infiltration of Atlas, during which he uses several rings to take control of most of Atlas' systems. He makes himself invisible to all security cameras, and enables Jacques Schnee to win the election and become a member of the Governing Council. Using Jacques' administrator access, he turns off the heating grid, increasing tensions exponentially. During his fight with Ironwood, he uses his hacking skills in combat nearly as much as his revolver, controlling the artificial gravity to keep his opponent on his toes. The rings also turn out to be able to generate a Hard Light shield.
• The title character in The Saga of Tuck routinely starts the school year by breaking in to school, getting the new passwords, and changing the class schedule so his friends share lunches. This is when he's not altering grades, installing Trojans or surveillance cameras, et cetera.
• In the Whateley Universe, there's a notorious cracker named Dr. Abel Palm, who believed that computers would replace humans. He tried to make that happen and was stopped by a mutant technopath (who is in fact the Assistant to the Headmistress and a bad guy at Whateley Academy). But The Palm, as he is now known, is not dead. He used black magics to ensorcell his own soul into an adaptable computer virus which is loose again.
• Saint from Worm is talented enough to have repeatedly defeated Dragon, the world's greatest tinker (largely because she's really an AI with incomplete programming that he can exploit), and even reverse-engineered her equipment.

Real Life

• A hacker is anyone who likes to mess around with computers. A cracker is specifically someone who uses computers with malicious intent, usually by breaking security measures.
• Truth in Television - known as Black Hats. Most common form (at least, the stereotype... which, so far, has been true) are people who hack other sites and computers for kicks and prestige, extending to virus makers and malicious program coders. Case in point: Our good buddy Killer Hack.
• Meta example: KiLLeR HaCK (whatever that may mean), the hacker(s) who hacked the Wiki on Nov. 13, 2008. You'd have to ask the Wiki administrators if they thought it was a case of hacking or cracking...
• Another Meta example: A hacker who we shall refer to as "Cap'n Dickless" hacked the accounts of various abridged series makers on YouTube (including Lanipator, hbi2k, MasakoX, Team Dattebayo, and numerous others), and many of the accounts had to be suspended because of this, but they later got them back, and Cap'n Dickless got what he deserved.
• The Dark Avenger lives in countries where hacking's not illegal. To add insult to injury, he adds completely random clues.
  • Dark Avenger is long gone. He was a young, mischievous programmer who was trying to learn new things and experimenting on his Pravetz 82 computer. The only reason anyone in Bulgaria even knew about computer viruses at the time was because of a translated 1988 article in a Bulgarian computer hobbyist magazine (only one at the time, most people in Bulgaria during the '80s had no idea what a computer was anyway), which jumpstarted the brief period of Bulgarian computer virus epidemics from 1989 to 1992. The reason Dark Avenger is still somewhat popular is because of his highly enigmatic persona, impersonators, his odd motivations (he was a grey hat neutral hacker whose exact motivations aren't known, besides his famous hatred of Vesselin Bontchev) and his relationship with Sarah Gordon. Todor Todorov claimed to be him, but was noticeably hostile, which wasn't a trait in the Gordon interview. For all we know, the Dark Avenger was a persona adopted by several virus writers, Bontchev himself, or it was an elaborate stunt.
• Kevin Mitnick, before the poacher turned gamekeeper.
  • In his book Ghost in the Wires, he reveals that much of his ability to break into computer systems was not done by fancy computer work, but by manipulating the people who ran the computers. For example, if he wanted to break into the computer system of a big corporation, he would do research on it, finding out the names of various managers and leaders, which can easily be found online, and hanging out at the corporate headquarters to learn the culture of the company and its various forms of exclusive terminology. Then he would call a manager in one office, claiming to be another manager in an office in a different city, and say something like, "Hey, (name), I'm (name of other manager) and I'm at the (currently ongoing tech convention) in Vegas and I want to demonstrate (company's device) to some customers, but I forgot to bring the system's password with me. Can you let me know what it is?" Surprisingly enough, this usually worked. And then breaking into the system was as simple as logging in with the provided password.
• Anonymous is a loosely-associated network of "hactivists", that was founded around 2003, committing cyber-crimes as a form of retribution against institutions they claim are corrupt, such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony, and controversial groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. Similar groups like LulzSec and Operation AntiSec have carried out cyberattacks on US government agencies, media, video game companies, military contractors, military personnel, and police officers. (Of course, these groups claim they aren't malicious but many would disagree.)
• In August 2013, a notorious hacker group called the Syrian Electronic Army who claimed to be sympathizers of the Syrian government, attacked the website of The New York Times, causing a great deal of collateral damage. Apparently a combination of their ability and rather poor security by Melbourne IT, a registrar of domain names, was at fault.

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