some server of people look like public servers to thraxian
Unless there's a bug that causes private servers to be listed in the IP Database when you click on the "Secret" button, I'm fairly confident that the servers I was hacking were NPC servers.
Also, the missions I was working on were to delete files from a server. According to the mission description, the server was not listed as "Gateway", and the description did not include the phrase "damage a hacker", which I believe are the two signs indicating that the server is privately owned.
I may be fresh off the boat, but telling the difference between an NPC server and a private server really isn't rocket science.... Thanks for your concern, though.