You get online. No one is in the room with you, or so you think. You check your e-mail, surf the net for a couple of minutes and sign off. In those few minutes, a hacker may have randomly targeted your Internet protocol address – your individual number for connecting to the Internet – according to Jim Dunham, associate professor of electrical engineering at SMU. The hacking problem is growing at SMU and at college campuses nationwide, experts say. Hackers can attack by altering Web sites or even scanning computers for specific files. Merlin Wilkerson, director of network and systems at SMU’s School of Engineering, said there has been a steady increase in hacking for the past two or three years at SMU. Hackers have gained a lot of publicity lately, David Sossaman, a sophomore computer science major said. He believes that the publicity is leading to an increase in hacking because it allows hackers to become more sophisticated. Full Story