Mischief is a vexatious or annoying action, or, conduct or activity that playfully causes petty annoyance. Young children, when they hear of mischief, think of practical jokes.

The etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

 of the word comes from Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 meschief, which means "misfortune,' from meschever, "to end badly." The term ‘mischief’ tends to minimize or play down the extent or seriousness of the violence

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

 often associated with the attacks.

In United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 criminal law

Criminal law

Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

, mischief is an offense against property

Property

Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...

 that does not involve conversion

Criminal conversion

Criminal conversion is the crime of exerting unauthorized use or control of someone else's property. It differs from theft in that it does not include the element of intending to deprive the owner of the possession of that property. As such, it is a lesser included offense of the crime of theft...

. It typically involves any damage

Property damage

Property damage is damage to or the destruction of public or private property, caused either by a person who is not its owner or by natural phenomena. Property damage caused by persons is generally categorized by its cause: neglect , and intentional damage...

, defacement

Defacement (vandalism)

In common usage, to deface something refers to marking or removing the part of an object designed to hold the viewers' attention. Example acts of defacement could include scoring a book cover with a blade, splashing paint over a painting in a gallery, or smashing the nose of a sculpted bust...

, alteration, or destruction of property

Property

Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...

. Common forms include vandalism

Vandalism

Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

, graffiti

Graffiti

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....

, or some other destruction or defacement of property other than arson

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

.
Governed by state law

State law

In the United States, state law is the law of each separate U.S. state, as passed by the state legislature and adjudicated by state courts. It exists in parallel, and sometimes in conflict with, United States federal law. These disputes are often resolved by the federal courts.-See also:*List of U.S...

, criminal mischief is committed when a perpetrator, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he/she has such right, intentionally damages

Damages

In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...

 property of another person, intentionally participates in the destruction of property of another person, or participates in the reckless damage or destruction of property of another person. Criminal mischief is usually a misdemeanor

Misdemeanor

A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...

.

In computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 and hacker

Hacker (computer security)

In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

 jargon, mischief is a form of attack

Attack

Attack may refer to:* Attack * The Attack , 1960s* Attack Records, label* Offensive * Charge * Attack - Titled works :* The Attack , book* Attack! , 2003...

 that clearly indicates the breach

Breach

-In law:* Breach of confidence, a common law tort that protects private information that is conveyed in confidence* Breach of contract, a situation in which a binding agreement is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract...

 of the system and constitutes a form of injury

Injury

-By cause:*Traumatic injury, a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident*Other injuries from external physical causes, such as radiation injury, burn injury or frostbite*Injury from infection...

 or an infringement

Infringement

Infringement, when used alone, has several possible meanings in the English language.In a legal context, an infringement refers to the violation of a law or a right. This includes intellectual property infringements such as:*Copyright infringement...

 of rights

Rights

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...

, more specifically invasion of privacy

Invasion of privacy

United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...

, against which legal action can be taken to secure damages

Damages

In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...

. Grey hat

Grey hat

A grey hat, in the hacking community, refers to a skilled hacker whose activities fall somewhere between white and black hat hackers on a variety of spectra. It may relate to whether they sometimes arguably act illegally, though in good will, or to show how they disclose vulnerabilities...

 hackers often use mischief as a way to signal security breaches to system administrators.

Mischief is also a way for hackers to "prove" themselves to others. As an overt demonstration to other hackers of their skill in the use of force

Force

In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a change in speed, a change in direction, or a change in shape. In other words, a force is that which can cause an object with mass to change its velocity , i.e., to accelerate, or which can cause a flexible object to deform...

, these security breaches can be taken as a sign

Sign

A sign is something that implies a connection between itself and its object. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm. A conventional sign signifies by agreement, as a full stop signifies the end of a sentence...

 of criminal intent

Criminal intent

Criminal intent is the plan of a person to commit a crime. Criminal intent can be one of the requirements for convicting someone for a crime. Advocates for proving criminal intent believe that a person is only a criminal if they intended to do the crime....

 and may result in charges as serious as terrorism

Terrorism

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

. In this context, terroristic threat

Threat

Threat of force in public international law is a situation between states described by British lawyer Ian Brownlie as:The 1969 Vienna convention on the Law of Treaties notes in its preamble that both the threat and the use of force are prohibited...

 involves a threat to commit violence (the computer attack) communicated with intent to cause significant harm

HARM

HARM or H.A.R.M. may refer to:* AGM-88 HARM, a high-speed anti-radiation missile* Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum, a museum in Creve Coeur, Missouri, United States...

, inconvenience, or injury (the resulting breach) in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such harm, inconvenience, or injury. Brute force

Brute force

Brute force may refer to any of several problem-solving methods involving the evaluation of multiple possible answer for fitness. The term has also been used as a stage name, book title, etc.In mathematics:...

is associated with hacker ‘mischief’.

Animal Life
The term mischief also refers to a group of pet, domestic rats. A mischief is a community family of rats ranging from any age or size, but only pertaining to those kept as pets. If wild species of rats are involved, it is referred to as a colony.