Article:		Fear and Loathing in Information Security
Subject:		Hacking
Date:		2005-02-11 18:24:53
From:		Mick.Bauer
Response to: Hacking
You've missed two key points in my essay. First, "hacker" doesn't mean "someone who tries to break stuff;" it's a very broad term that goes way beyond penetration-testing. I don't care to re-type the definition I devoted an entire paragraph to in the essay (see above), but suffice it to say that neither Linus Torvalds nor Lord Kelvin ever spent any appreciable time trying to break into systems, overflow buffers, etc. To hack is to solve problems and expand one's knowledge; this may involve skills and pastimes that can be (ab)used to "hack into" computers, but more often it simply means figuring out elegant solutions to mundane computing problems not covered in the manual. Second, I said that in my professional opinion, the vast majority of people who call themselves hackers (in the broad sense!) are not criminally inclined. Your experience may be different than mine, but I've been in this business for the better part of a decade, and my opinion is based on near-daily interactions with hackers who are both skilled and ethical. Again, many of them have no aptitude for or even interest in penetration testing, virus-writing, etc.; most of my hacker friends are in fact much more skilled at defending than attacking (myself included). But hey, if you still prefer to fear all umpteen-thousand of us regardless of our actual behavior, I guess I can't stop you.

Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.

• Hacking
  2005-02-12 03:33:22  coolspot [Reply | View]
  
  
  Ok... if therer really is a different side to "hacking" a side which isnt harmfull, which dosent involve illegal stuff, which is productive and nice or whatever... then cant you call it something else. Because it simply dosent matter how many times, or to whom you speak it, saying hackig is nie wont work becuase hacking to almost everyone with a computer means bad. There is no way that anyone can change that now. I apologise for any bad sentiments toward you or other "hackers" who arent bad, from what you say your not and good for you, but hacker to most people means bad things for computers.
  
  and about fearing hackers... you HAVE to. or atleast the effects of hackers. a firewall is an absolute must, dont even think about runing a computer without antivirus, and i have multiple anti spyware programs on my computer (i know its not QUITE the same thing, but it involves people knowing stuff about my computer i dont whant them to know) Security is extreemely important now, and this is simply because of hackers. or people writing worms, viruses and other evil crap. And im sorry, but hacker is synomenouse (spell?) with virus. A problem which needs to be guarded against.
  
  so i do apologise to any "nice hackers" but, cant you change your name or something? i dont know... cracker... D.B.P (digital boundry pusher) SOMETHING but hacker will only get you odd looks and bad press.