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.
I don't think that people who have called themselves a 'hacker' for quite some time should be made to change their title because a few uninformed people have created a panic around the term. If the public has a bad view of the term hacker, then having hackers call themselves D.B.P.'s isn't going to help anymore than calling worms "self-propogating programs" would. The goal here should be to inform the public and change their uninformed view of hackers so that speeches like the one noted in the article aren't made again.
I agree that one must be aware of the exploits and vulnerabilities that hackers point out and make public. However, security is not simply a consequence of hackers. Security is a consequence of human nature. Banks don't just put your money in vaults because of safecrackers, they put your money in vaults because your average person will walk away with your money if they find it lying in the middle of the street.
'Hacker' is not synonymous with virus. One is a person. The other is a program. Yes, one is a problem to be guarded against. But a hacker is not a problem any more than a treasury agent familiar with counterfeiting is a 'problem' to the U.S. economy. Any belief to the otherwise is a gross oversimplification of the facts.
The issue here isn't the word. The issue here is getting 'most people' to change their personal meaning of the word. Odd looks and bad press are based on opinion, not fact. Opinions that don't HAVE to be set in stone.
I agree that one must be aware of the exploits and vulnerabilities that hackers point out and make public. However, security is not simply a consequence of hackers. Security is a consequence of human nature. Banks don't just put your money in vaults because of safecrackers, they put your money in vaults because your average person will walk away with your money if they find it lying in the middle of the street.
'Hacker' is not synonymous with virus. One is a person. The other is a program. Yes, one is a problem to be guarded against. But a hacker is not a problem any more than a treasury agent familiar with counterfeiting is a 'problem' to the U.S. economy. Any belief to the otherwise is a gross oversimplification of the facts.
The issue here isn't the word. The issue here is getting 'most people' to change their personal meaning of the word. Odd looks and bad press are based on opinion, not fact. Opinions that don't HAVE to be set in stone.