Skip to main content

Joe Tidy - Five Way Interview

Joe Tidy is the BBC’s first Cyber Correspondent and the author of Ctrl+ Alt+ Chaos: How Teenage Hackers Hijack the Internet. Joe has built a reputation for investigating the darker sides of the internet and how technology affects the way people live. He is known for tracking down and speaking directly to hackers and criminals who are responsible for some of the biggest cyber incidents of recent times. His top six BBC News documentaries, including The Teenage Millionaire Hacker and The Russian Hackers, have garnered more than 7 million views. Before joining the BBC, he was a correspondent at Sky News where he regularly reported on technology and began his decade-long obsession with cybercrime after reporting on the infamous 2014 Christmas day Lizard Squad attack.

Why this book?

This book charts the life of crime of, what I think is, the most hated hacker in history. I interviewed Julius Kivimaki back in 2014 when he was the figurehead for Lizard Squad - a notorious attention-seeking teen hacker group. It was my first ever cyber story and started my decade-long obsession with cybercrime. Kivimaki came back into the headlines in 2022, linked to the enormously and incredibly cruel hack of a therapy company in Finland. I wanted to know how a computer game playing kid became one of the most wanted cyber criminals in the world - and what we can learn about teenage hacking culture in the process. 

Why do you think the attitude of hackers has changed so much in the last 30 or so years?

In my book I settle on a couple of theories. Firstly - the rise of Twitter (now X). This social network, used by groups like Anonymous in the 2010s, showed that hackers can become internet famous. I also think Bitcoin has played a part in boosting the motivation of these kids and young people to turn down the dark side of hacking for monetary gain. There was also a strange period of time in the 2010s when internet culture in general turned pretty dark and misogynistic with movements like Gamer Gate. This could have played a part too.

Are justice systems starting to take the crimes of underage hackers more seriously?

Not really. I argue in my book that the cyber security world and society in general still doesn’t know how to handle teenagers who get caught up in cybercrime. There is a mixed bag of responses that doesn't make a lot of sense. In some jurisdictions they are punished with harsh sentences. In others - in fact most - they are given a slap on the wrist and often reoffend as we see time and again in my book. But the issue is so complex, and it is hard to judge what is right. Police and judges are in a difficult position of trying not to ruin kids' lives for carrying out sometimes minor crimes - but also need to come down hard on the kids that seem to feel invincible. 

What’s next?

For me personally I am planning on digging further into the international element. Is there a difference between the pathways of Russian/ Chinese/ North Korean hackers? Or is the western journey universal? I'm hoping to get into some of this in a podcast series I am currently making with the BBC.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

Launching a book! It's been a phenomenal experience. It's a very solitary thing to do and there were many times in the last year when I would be typing away late at night not knowing if anyone would be interested in the story and topic I am obsessed with. But so far the response has been amazing and it is very exciting!

These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Invented the Computer? – Ian Watson

Ian Watson is the author of  The Universal Machine  and featured in a recent  Four Way Interview . Saturday June 23 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the troubled genius who invented the modern computer. Why though do so few people recognize his name and his great achievements? In 1936 English mathematician Alan Turing, published a paper,  On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem . This became the foundation of computing. In it Turing presented a theoretical machine that could solve any problem that could be described by instructions encoded on a paper tape. A Turing Machine could calculate square roots, whilst another might solve Sudoku puzzles. Turing demonstrated you could construct a single  Universal Machine  that could simulate any Turing Machine. One machine solving any problem for which a program could be written – sound familiar? He’d invented the computer. Then,  computers  were peop...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ignorance: How it drives science – Stuart Firestein *****

This is a delightful little book that really gets you thinking. I stress the ‘little’ part not as a negative, but as a good thing. There is nothing worse than fat, bloated popular science books where the author feels they have to get 120,000 words to be taken seriously. This is the sort of book that can be read in a couple of hours – but you will get so much more out of it than one of those tedious doorstops. The premise underlying the book is in once sense extremely simple, yet is fundamental to an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. And it is an understanding that is totally at odds with the typical way science is portrayed both in university lectures and popular science books. As Stuart Firestein points out, what is important is not the facts, but rather the area of ignorance. The interesting part and the fundamental heart of science is not about what we know, but about what we don’t know and where we want to look next. Take this lovely quote: ‘Working ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Star Book – Peter Grego ****

This attractive landscape format book combines an excellent introduction to the stars and basic astronomy with a set of star maps, plus in depth looks at some of the stars featured, with a  bonus section on the solar system. Amazon says it’s a hardback, but in fact it’s a paperback with a rather ingenious cover – you can’t tell from the photo, but the words ‘The Star Book’ are punched through as a series of holes that show the white paper of the next page beneath. Like many astronomy/space books, the cover lacks shelf appeal because it is mostly black, but at least there is some original thought here. Unlike many books in this format which tend to concentrate on the pictures, there is a good deal of excellent text by Peter Grego, so there was no feeling that you were only getting the star maps and star ‘biographies’, something these days much more suited to an iPad or smartphone app. Instead, the opening 30 or so pages give a very good introduction that would be valuable to ...
Post a Comment
Read more