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I often hear of black-hat hacking discussed as if it was synonymous with illegal hacking. In other words, an act of hacking is black-hat iff it is illegal. Our own tag wiki for defines it as "the act of using computer security hacking for illegal means..." using the black hat==illegal definition, but an answer on this site mentions that participating in government-sponsored (and thus presumably not locally criminal) cyber warfare counts as black-hat.

So, strictly speaking, is black-hat work necessarily illegal, or can it describe cybersecurity work that is legal but unethical? Similarly, if certain work is illegal under local law but produces positive social value, is it black-hat because of the legality or might it be considered white-hat due to the outcome?

As an illustration of what I am talking about, let's consider the following two hypothetical scenarios:

  • I am living under a despotic, human-rights violating regime that just passed a law authorizing arbitrary warrantless hacking of computers owned by minorities and political dissidents and making resisting such hacks punishable by catapult. I "join the resistance", helping my neighbors to secure their systems and even launch a DDoS against the government's surveillance center. I take care in making sure that my attacks are targeted only at the areas of the government responsible for human rights violations and nowhere else. Am I a white-hat hacker because I am doing a social good or am I black-hat because my actions are illegal and subject me to a judicial sentence of catapult?
  • I am living under the despotic regime mentioned above, but I instead join the government's civil service cyber police force ("To Hack Unpersons and Protect our Fearless Leader!") and hack my neighbor Charles, who did nothing wrong but vote for the wrong candidate in the last election. My actions are considered lawful law enforcement work under local law but my family will no longer speak to me and I have been excommunicated from and damned to hell by my religious congregation. Am I a white-hat hacker because my actions are lawful or a black-hat hacker because I am participating in a social ill?

To be clear, I'm not asking this question about any specific situation, but about definitions. Is black-hat work most accurately defined as illegal hacking, unethical hacking, any hacking I don't like, or something else entirely? If there is a disagreement, what are the major positions?

As another hypothetical question to get the juices flowing, when all computers are banned, are all hackers black-hat?

schroeder
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Robert Columbia
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    Everything past your first paragraph is a philosophical ethics question, not an infosec question. You have definitions of the term. I don't know why an arbitrary comment by an arbitrary person would trigger such a deep introspection on the term. You have not provided proof that there is any "major disagreement" so this looks like a straw man argument. – schroeder Aug 27 '22 at 23:07
  • "Black hat" is not a legal term, so it really depends on who you ask. – forest Aug 28 '22 at 22:53
  • This is not an infosec question, but as noted by schroeder, is purely an ethics question - off topic here. – Rory Alsop Aug 30 '22 at 18:05

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You are missing the point: government-backed attacks are illegal within the target's jurisdiction. "Black Hat" means intentional, unapproved harm to the target.

The rest is an ethics question, not an infosec question.

schroeder
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  • You mention "illegal", then say "intentional, unapproved harm". Would you say that hacks committed by law enforcement against the will of a suspect, but pursuant to law (e.g. a valid search warrant, or a law that permits warrantless hacks) are white hat because they are legal or black hat because they were not consented to by the target? For example, a cop seizes a smartphone from a suspected child pornographer pursuant to warrant, and is directed to break its encryption as part of the investigation. Is this white hat police work or black hat police work? – Robert Columbia Aug 28 '22 at 10:55
  • And that's a purely philosophical ethics question. I'm not getting into that because this is not the right site for that discussion. In most jurisdictions, "intentional, unapproved harm" is illegal. – schroeder Aug 28 '22 at 10:57
  • The ethics of legal exceptions to intentional harm is an ethical and legal question. Not for discussion here. – schroeder Aug 28 '22 at 10:58