United Nations - The Hackers Profiling Project (HPP), page 1

If you weren't already paranoid about the UN, this might give you cause. In this day and age something like disagreeing with the admins of a website like Flickr or having the wrong opinion on the Whitehouse.gov political blog might get you labelled a "hacker" and get you flagged by there Security/ Risk Management/ Legal Services department. Especially if you are "disrupting" these sites with unconventional political opinions. Or if you are persistent with your counter view. I've highlighted some key points

The Hackers Profiling Project (HPP)

Background information
The advances in information and communications technology are a double-edged sword, and as we move into the future, the benefits and costs are rapidly coming into focus. We are now dependent on our technological infrastructure for almost all aspects of our daily lives and this dependence is equally important in the public and private spheres. Air, road, and railway traffic control, electricity and gas grids, wire and mobile telecommunications systems, police and fire dispatch centres, hospitals, government offices and structures controlling national defence and public services are now organised and controlled through the use of computers and advanced IT networks. Within the private sector, banks, stock markets, and other monetary institutions that transfer or handle billions of daily transactions are also built upon integrated computer systems. Such great dependence on information technology has created new forms of vulnerability for modern society, and public and private entities have to face the reality that their technology infrastructure may be susceptible to attacks.

The project aims to improve the response to ICT crime and the transnational organised crime groups that may be involved in it, by outlining the criminal profiles of the different types of hackers, with particular emphasis on their possible involvement in transnational organised crime activities and cyber-terrorism. Through a better understanding of hackers, HPP will facilitate the prevention and countering of ICT crimes and will improve the operational methods that may lead to the identification of computer intruders.

Project phases
The HPP project began in 2006 and is composed of 8 different phases, carried out with the support of the Italian Association for Information Technology Security (CLUSIT):

Phase 1 - Theoretical collection (completed/on-going): Elaboration and distribution of a questionnaire (hpp.recursiva.org...), which consists of three modules: Module A on personal data; Module B on relational data; and Module C on technical and criminological data. The questionnaire is available in several languages.

Phase 2 - Observation (on-going): Participation in IT underground security events in Europe, USA, Asia and Australia.

Phase 3 - Filing (on-going): Creation of a database for the classification and elaboration of data collected during phase 1.

Phase 4 - “Live” collection (to be commenced): Elaboration and building up of new generation and highly customized Honey-Net Systems.

Phase 5 - Gap and Correlation Analysis (yet to come): Gap analysis and correlation among data collected through the questionnaire, Honey-Net and profiles deducted from existing literature on the topic.

Phase 6 - Live assessment (pending): Continuous assessment of hackers’ profiles and correlation of modus operandi through the data collected in phase 4.

Phase 7 - Final profiling (pending): Redefinition and fine-tuning of different hacker profiles previously used as “de-facto standard.”

Phase 8 - Diffusion of the model (pending): Final elaboration of results, drafting and publication of the elaborated methodology, campaigns to raise awareness.