Outside of the technology world, hackers are usually viewed in a very negative light. They are seen as something similar to lockpickers and burglars, criminals whose methods are, ironically, usually equally misunderstood by the general public and greatly exaggerated by the movie industry.
However, especially in the past decade or so, the idea of “ethical” hackers has also become more popular. In the TV show NCIS, for example, there is a hacker working for the government who is sometimes able to use her unique skillsets to help locate terrorists, and in the show Criminal Minds, there is a hacker who is able to use her hacking abilities to find the location of serial killers, often just in time for her team of FBI agents to swoop in and save the day.
These characters on TV, however, are not good examples of what an ethical hacker in reality actually is.
For one thing, the hackers on those shows typically operate outside of what would be considered “legal” actions, even for the FBI.
Additionally, even if the government was to give its full authority for a hacker to break in to a private citizen’s computer, this wouldn’t make the hacking inherently “ethical”…
