GRAY HAT HACKING: MORALLY BLACK AND WHITE
Courtney Falk · 2004
This paper sets forth to explore the idea of gray hat hacking – computer hackers outside of an organization breaking into that organization’s computer systems with the goal of securing it on behalf of the organization. Gray hat hackers pose a danger because of the uninformed opinions they use to justify their actions. This paper shows similar negative judgments of gray hat hacking from a variety of viewpoints by surveying three prominent normative ethical theories. The target audience is security and computing personnel, managers, supervisors, and others working with computers who may have little to no experience with philosophy and ethics. 1.