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Hackers
Hackers starts out with a discussion on the hacker, what he (as is pointed out in the book, the hacker is almost always a 'he') does, and why he does what he does. Somewhat sadly, although fairly well-founded, is Taylor's choice of terminology. He chooses to consistently address the cracker as hacker. A hacker is not a cracker, but a cracker is always a hacker (put in more technical terms: the cracker is a subset of the hacker class -- think object orientation here), which is a point Taylor seems to willfully ignore. That he chooses to use the terminology in this manner is rather sad because it puts an ugly stain on the respectability of the hackers -- those of us who not meddling in computer break-ins or other dubious activities, but merely hack code to produce cool software. Throughout the rest of this review I will be using the term cracker to refer to Taylor's hackers, and hacker when referring to real hackers
However, since crackers are a subset of hackers, much of Taylor's discussion on the hack and hacking is applicable to the hacker community at large. This is one of the things that makes Hackers an interesting read. For a newcomer to the hacker community Taylor's discussion on the 'hack' is quite enlightening. Even for oldtimers his discussion may shed some new light on the hack. Contrary to existing material on the matter, like the Jargon File, Taylor is the first to spell out the criteria implicit in earlier treatises on the hack: 1) simplicity, 2) mastery, and 3) illicitness [as in 'against the rules', reviewers comment] (p.15). This latter criteria is in its use of the 'illicitness' term only applicable to the cracking activity. In a sense it is applicable to hacking as well. Then in the shape of 'against the rules'. We are not neccessarily talking against the rules of justice, but against what the system's rules say is possible. In that sense, calling the third criteria illicitness hints at somewhat dubious activities, but is in fact not. It is an important element in the regular hack (if such thing as a regular hack does exist), too.
Taylor manages to view the hacker community from a fresh angle. Being a sociology researcher his angle is quite different from that represented by for instance Eric S. Raymond or Gisle Hannemyr. One drawback is that Taylor draws on Steven Levy's overly romanticized hacker ethics as presented in Levy's book of 1984: Hackers. It is time someone tried looking somewhat deeper into the hacker psychology to realize that while Levy's five tenets may to a certain degree represent attitudes within the hacker community, it is not, contrary to what Levy proposes, an ethos by which hackers live and die (apart from this, though, Levy's book is highly enjoyable and recommended reading). I'm also having some problems accepting the psychosexual theories on hacking that Taylor proposes. They seem a bit far fetched to me. It's been a while since everybody agreed that Freud's psycho-therapy was kind of overly sex-fixated.
Taylor addresses a largely ignored issue in hacker literature, that of the gender question. Why are there next to no female hackers? He addresses the point through looking at societal factors, by explaining how the community is a masculine environemnt -- the new wild west, so to say -- and the fact that electronic communication creates misogynity through its anonymity. At the end of the chapter it is a bit hard to grasp what Taylor's point is, though (see Presentation for more).
Another issue thoroughly treated is the question of hacker motivation. What drives the hacker to hack? Taylor's background within sociology is again helpful, as he regards the issue from a fresh perspective. Hacker motivation has previously been treated by Eric Raymond in his essay Homesteading the Noosphere . Taylor's angle is to compare academic theories on hacker motivation with the the reasons the hackers' themselves give. From the discrepancy between these two angles he lists four reasons for hacking: obsession, curiosity, boredom, and the feeling of power. If not directly contradicting Raymond's view -- that hackers hack simply to gain peer esteem and status within the community -- Taylor gives Raymond's view a more multi-faceted hue. He goes beneath the drive for esteem, trying to address the reasons why anyone would need to gain esteem from their peers. As such, Taylor manages to add something new to a discussion that has been on the brink of going stale.
Issues on computer security and crackingTaylor's main focus on crackers is how society at large is to deal with them. Are crackers to be treated as criminal masterminds plotting to bring the world to its knees, or simply misguided kids trying to do something exciting with their computer knowledge? Several views are drawn up, with Taylor quoting representatives of each view without really making any kind of judgment himself as to the better way of handling crackers. It is an exercise in how difficult the question truly is.
A number of other quite intriguing cracker/computer security issues are spelled out by Taylor, as well. Issues include who is to blame when a computer system has been cracked? The system administrator for not maintaining sufficient security or the cracker for breaking into a system to which he doesn't have legal access? Should anti-cracking laws be targeted at stopping all kinds of illegal computer use, or are there degrees to the crime being committed? Is printing your personal CV on the company's printers even though it is explicitly forbidden to use company equipment for personal use to be treated as a computer crime equal to that of breaking into a banking system and tampering with the data?
Taylor also questions the computer security companies' motivations (and rightly so, one might add). Are they simply running a protection racket like that of the mafia, using cracking and virus alerts to scare their customers into investing in expensive counter-measure software? Or are they avenging angels siding with the innocent, the not particularly compu-fluent masses? Using the dichotomy of the computer security industry vs. the crackers, Taylor raises the issue of whether good computer security can only be achieved through knowing the enemy, the crackers. Can crackers and computer security consultants work together in a symbiosis, or are they eternal enemies never to be reconciliated?
Another issue dealt with is how crackers are to be handled. Should their acts be punished in the harshest way, or should they be helped into redirecting their activities into more useful terms? The question is whether the cracker is to be treated as a nuisance or as an asset. Taylor treats this issue quite thoroughly referring from the parliamentary discussion in Britain. He also discusses in what ways legislation can prevent cracking. He shows how little the law enforcement agencies know about cracking and how they employed overkill (refer to the Norwegian police's recent raid on the hacker who broke the DVD encryption).
PresentationHowever intriguing the book might be it is presented in a very unorderly and weird way. The pages are filled with rather long quotations from various e-mails, books, interviews, etc. I gather the intention is to present the reader with the direct opinions of the book's "main characters," giving us in a way a first person view of the matter. The idea is nice, but the effect is that it ruins the fluidity of the text, making the book somewhat hard to follow. Also: it is at times quite difficult to grasp what message Taylor is trying to convey when he is expressing himself through the extracts of other people's opinions. Quotes are OK, but when, without exaggeration, 50% of the average page is taken up by quotations it is a little bit too much of the good stuff.
Having said that, the book is very structured, each chapter building nicely on previous chapters. The conclusion at the end of almost all chapters helps clarify Taylor's opinions a bit, which is nice. Still, it does not weigh up for the confusion created by the excessive use of quotations.
ConclusionTaylor succeeds with explaining the relationship between crackers and the computer security industry, presenting the matter in a more multifaceted way than that of the mass media. The book is a definite must for those wanting an introduction to the social sides of computer security. However, I find it rather amazing that a book written in 1999 seems to totally ignore the writings of Eric Raymond, as these are probably the best works on how hackers view their own culture. Despite this, I believe Hackers might prove an interesting read even for the hardcore hacker, if only as an alternative look at our own culture.
Purchase this book at fatbrain.
Another Good Book that deals with the crackers and how they are delt with is Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. It's freely available in a few different electronic formats on the EFF site somewhere.
As long as the mass media and Hollywood continue to perpetuate the term "hacker" in a negative sense, then the confusion will continue.   However, there is an unfortunate possibility that the press avoids the use of the term "cracker" for other reasons, ie., that term has been used in the south for years to represent poor whites and might be considered perjorative.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
Personally what i really enjoy in these types of books are the personal historical bits, like old emails letters and such, the give a better firsthand view of what happened... and even better what people "thought" was happening... looking very much forward to reading it...
When I studied Computers in school (and thats how long ago it was, it was "Computers"), we did a hell of lot of work on the social effects.
One point that was mentioned was that IT is unfortunately a male-dominated reserve - and it's sad. We cannot allow this artificial dichotomy to continue.
However the Free Software movement has proven that IT can, and does, throw up changes that work.
Its a sad fact that plenty of the women I know who work in IT have to fight serious pettiness and ignorance just to be treated equally.
...Upgrade now to Schrodingers Dog...
'in lieu of' means 'instead of', not 'with regard to'.
;-)
Just to stamp on a negative meme
Jules
-- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a perl script.
Thank you //Johan
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
>Why are there next to no female hackers?
Really. I'd like to see the studies, statistics, and data indicating this conclusion. I'm a man, but I know many women in the hacking (no, not cracking, but I'll leave *that* rant to someone more eloquent) community. Granted, there are far fewer women involved in this field than men, but to say that there are "next to no female hackers" is going much too far.
This book sounds like an interesting read, if only to find out what goes on in the minds of non-techies with respect to techies, but I really hope it's not too expensive. Books are steep enough nowadays. Which reminds me... when I'm not a student anymore, I'm going to invest in a college textbook publishing company. Bloody textbook prices are driving me crazy. They must be making some major cash at those publishing companies...
Am I the only one that thinks the constant flameage about the mass-media substituting the term "Hacker" for "Cracker" is a pointless waste of energy about what amounts to be a semantic non-issue?
There is a long history of words being subverted to other meanings in the English language. Hacker now means someone who maliciously breaks into computers and any amount of moaning will not change that.
stty erase ^H
I don't mean to be flamebait or off-topic, but he has a very good point! I was about to post the same thing, but I didn't want to be redundant. Anyway, this is quite important. Yes, our language is always evolving, yes, phrases soemtimes take on new meanings, but this one has a clear, literal meaning. Besides, it's abusing the French language. :)
Um. On the subject of [h|cr]ackers. I have given up trying to explain this to my friends. I only now resort to the "it's cracker not hacker, darnit, and hacker originally meant someone who tinkered with their computer" speech when, upon learning that I am in the midst of a game of NetHack, say, "Hack!? Are you one of those people who's hacing into Yahoo and eBay?!"
*sigh*
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Are you sure you didn't mean to write "In light of the ..."? C'mon guys, a spellchecker doesn't replace actual proofreading.
-- I'm not evil, I'm
Male hackers/crackers (aren't crackers something I break into my soup?) are often engaged in these activities to garner some respect and esteem from the community at large, stroke their egos, so to speak. Female participants in the community are more likely to be doing it for their own self gratification, not a pat on the back.
There is also my still-standing opinion that many women in this industry don't have the self-presence to compete effectively in the industry, simply because they take things entirely too personally. Everything sounds like an insult or sexist comment to them. It's a sad symptom of women all over the world, and applies to a lesser degree to any minority.
That said, I'm female, and because I am here for my own personal enjoyment and growth, it doesn't matter what male hackers/crackers (soup? can't stop thinking about soup...) say or do.
stop taking life so seriously. It's not out to get you.
My opinion, abuse it as you wish.
Sakhmet.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Ban the Nukes! Save the Whales! Screw it. Nuke the Whales!
There's been alot written about why crackers do what they do - in articles, books, and on websites.   And there are even interviews and quotes from White Hats who tell you exactly why they do what they do - that is, to point out the casualness and outright laziness of many sysadmins and sysops regarding security and proper configuration of their systems.   Microsoft has recently pointed out the ebay fiasco in their rather cagy dot-truth" page.   In reality, the problem was one of misconfiguration and not some defect in the OS or hardware.   This extends to many of the major sites and particularly to their router configurations (or misconfigurations).   It's also been said that much of the DDoSing going on can be reduced dramatically if one pays close attention to how their equipment is configured.
The topic of security is a fascinating one and with the proliferation of 24/7 broadband access, ie., ADSL, cable, ISDN, it is prudent that whether you plan to put a windoze box, *nix box, Mac box, or Be box on the net, you RESEARCH security before you put that box out there.
The latest DDoS attacks were blamed on zombie Linux boxen out on the net.   Alot of the reports focussed particularly on those PCs sitting on college campuses with big pipes.   I think that in the education arena, particulary in the CS departments at the colleges, driving home the issue of computer security is a MUST
.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
These are the files you should include: stdio.h, sys/types.h, time.h, stdlib.h, ctype.h
See how good Open Source is? It's easy to post corrections!
Issue 1 : Hackers v Crackers
/. readers will get this. Problem is, the term 'hacking' is pejorative. It has got a bad press. The PR machine of the non-malign hacker is silent, indeed non-existent ! We need a better one. We also need to reclaim the term 'hacker' or find something new to replace it. Microsoft and Apple do it all the time. Why can't we ?
I like hacking around with code, operating systems and toys. It is an extension of my childhood Lego set. I suppose I am a hacker, and most
Issue 2: Why are 'hackers' male ?
OK, computing is male dominated. The reasons are better discussed by John Katz than me. As for crackers - everyone convicted to date (to my knowledge) has been male. Once the press apply the standard 'identi-kit' hacker prose describing them and their deeds, the male hacker/cracker stereotype, with all its associated images, gets reinforced. I await the press reaction to the conviction of the first high profile female cracker with great interest.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
I'm going to share an experience I had an year or two ago, when I was interviewing for a job at a local high circulation newspaper. It is illustrative of how a book like this can cause great missunderstanings.
In the course of the iterview I used the sentence "Which is something that I, as a self-respecting hacker, would never do". This was followed by a pregnant silence and "significant looks" being exchanged between by employers-to-be.
This led to a quick explanation, a frantic search for The Jargon File and, believe it or not, a short article in the "Computers" part of the paper regarding the difference between hacker and cracker. All in all, it was a Good Thing (and I got the gig, too).
I was lucky, I had a chance to "defend myself" and managed to get the point accross, but I suspect that any person describind him/herself as a hacker will face much the same reaction - and will likely face unwarranted negative reactions. I realize that the meme is widespread, but it must be fought somehow.
There is a pretty good letter and other suggestions here. Has your local newspaper received one yet ?
This is one of the most infamous entries in the book, which broke in live on a BBC Television demonstration of the Prestel service.: The Hacker Song
The reason there seems to be a more male bias in cracking is simple. Schools and parents encourage boys towards technical stuff, and girls towards nurturing stuff. The women crackers tend to be the rebellious ones who told their parents where they could stuff their gender roles.
If men and women were allowed to go after their own, personal interests, rather than have them dictated from On High, I suspect you'd find that the number of men and women in cracking was about equal. I suspect that the overall total would be less, too, as dictatorship & control breed far more resentment and hostility than guidance and understanding.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There's already a much better book written, under the same name. Hackers, by Steven Levy.
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
He's actually 25, but he hacked his birth certificate to become a minor under the law.
Currently the parent post is at 3, Informative. Why? If there is anyone reading /. who doesn't know the details of the entire DeCSS situation then they have probably typed in the wrong URL and don't really want to be here. It's not informative to repeat the same information we've heard again and again without adding anything new.
Couldn't he have picked ANOTHER name for this book? We already
have a book called "Hackers" (what keeps this particular book from
stepping on it's toes is the fact that it's full title is
"Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution".)
But still, that's pretty lame to me. Have some friggin consideration for one of
the best books on subject available to both people outside the culture,
and inside. (Yes, I'm aware of it's inaccuracies, but H:HOTCR is still a damned good read.)
Apologies for the flamage, but this pisses me off.
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
well that certainly wasn't very nice, was it?
I'm hemos., aka Jeff. Bates.. I help run this site, along with Rob. Malda.. I handle books, and generally posting storie
oh man, you are so clever! i laughed and laughed and laughed, and then i realized i wanted to pour scalding hot grits down your pants.
-hemos
I'm hemos., aka Jeff. Bates.. I help run this site, along with Rob. Malda.. I handle books, and generally posting storie
--
Folklore consists of certain universal ideas that have been mapped onto local cultures. For example, many cultures have a Trickster figure, so the Trickster may be deemed a universal; but he appears in different guises, each appropriate to a particular culture's environment. The Indians of the American Southwest called him Coyote, those of the Pacific Coast called him Raven. Europeans called him Reynard the Fox. African-Americans called him Br'er Rabbit. In twentieth-century literature he appears first as Bugs Bunny and then as the Hacker".
I think Stephenson has a point here. In nineteenth-century American literature, I suppose Huckleberry Finn could be called a Trickster too.
Moderators, take note:
1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything
"In lieu of the Norwegian police's crackdown on 16-year-old hacker Jon Johansen, who broke the DVD copying protection, Paul A. Taylor's book Hackers raises..."
Not to be a grammar prick (cuz I hate those guys), but doesn't "in lieu of" really mean "instead of"? I know what the writer is trying to say, and I'm trying to figure out what should be used in lieu of "in lieu of". Or am I totally wrong?
"UNIX" is never having to say you're sorry.
not in lieu of. "In lieu of" means instead of.
Sheesh.
My journal has hot
On a note somewhat unrelated note, I've tried to go to fatbrain.com all morning and I simply get:
Error- 404
Requested Information
www.fatbrain.com//
is unavailable. Failed to connect to server
www.fatbrain.com (80)
reason: hostname unknown
http-gw version 4.1 / 2 (167.92.107.160)
Any idea what's going on? All seemed well last week when I visited the site. Are they suffereing a DDoS because they run asp?
The usual link doesn't work.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Like one code is broken, then they think of a new one. Like DVD, we can now see movies on our computer, a scandinavian kid breaks it (or publishes the crack) and they come up with a new challenge.Life certainly is a game!
Bizar technology?
Of course, what they really want is a buzzword, so looks like it'll have to be "cybercracker".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Why use a term that has a defined and commonly understood meaning, if it's going to take fifty words to explain that you're not using that commonly understood meaning, but rather one you've invented? Particularly when it's one with emotional loading, such as "illicit".
I would use instead the phrase "outside the box" (despite the buzzwording it's suffered in recent years.) "The box" is the set of mental constraints under which the majority of people operate; I would suggest that it *is* one of the great pleasures of hacking (almost an aesthetic pleasure) to go exploring beyond those constraints and come back bearing treasures. Isn't one of the anticipated rewards of a great hack the jaw-drops of stupefied amazement from the first onlookers to behold the surprise? Isn't that, in fact, what often makes the truly great hack a pleasure to onlookers as well as to the hacker?
"Illicit" suggests that a hacker could be motivated just by the thought, "Wow, this is illegal!" (And again, I reject the idea that "illicit" and "illegal" are the right terms to use as long as you misuse "law" to mean "convention".) The thrill of defying authority figures might be what motivates a cracker. But to a hacker, that itself would be a mental constraint ("authority/law" == "automatically bad") within which they would not knowingly choose to be imprisoned.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
A friend of mine did a study on this - he wanted to know the difference between a "normal" person and a computer freak. He found none - except that computer freaks have a tendency to hate the telephone...
I've just started a web site about the psychology of software development (http://www.devtopics.de). If you read the chapter about motivation you'll find that this applies to hackers, too, though it isn't aimed at them (maybe I should add another unfinished chapter - sigh).
There are not much female hackers for a very simple reason: women are aimed at reaching goals, they don't have the time or the nerve to play around just to find something (and sometimes nothing) out. Hackers are people think that reality is a game were you have to find the rules and were you can go farther by cheating...
You found a sword: +4 damage, +5 moderator points
Look at the basic anthropology of women. Women are much more hardwired than men to be social animals
Bull. Neither men not women are "hardwired" for anything, other than a few relexive responses which, revealingly, are the same across the gender line. Response to loud noises, the eye-blink reflex, etc. There is little else in human beings that is hardwired AT ALL. Sure there are differences between male and female humans, but most of them are hardware. Men grow beards, women grow breasts. The social stuff, however, is far too complex to be left to the slow, unreliable hardware. Social things change too fast. The fast responses that software allows are the only solution. So humans learn, grow, and adapt. Faster than their hardwiring would allow.
Hardwiring is for insects.
Sitting around the basement fsck'ing around on PCs isn't a particularly social activity.
No? It is when I do it!
Sure, some (stereotypically) women's hobbies are social. But so are some of men's. In fact, the opposite argument used to be made regarding (stereotypically) women's sports. That they tend to be individual competitions (tennis, gymnastics) rather than team sports.
But I digress. The hacker does not hack for individual glory or profit, or because of the social contacts that it affords. He (or she) hacks "because it's there."
Maybe the women hackers are just better at not getting caught (when they're breaking rules) or avoiding attention (when they're just bending them).
Be box a loo la, she's my baby.
Be box a loo la, and I don't mean maybe.
And I'm waitin' for my free Be to release.   Any day now.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
16-year-old hacker Jon Johansen, who broke the DVD copying protection,
He didn't. An older bloke in Germany did it...
As someone who regulary indulges in biscuits and cheese I find the use of the term "cracker" in a derogatory manner plain offensive.
Couldn't somebody find a less heavily loaded term that doesn't deride my favourite snack.
I'm sure that thousands of people like me object to being labelled a criminal for doing nothing more offensive than devoting a small portion of our time to eating.
Thanks!!
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D BREAK - CONT repeats
Of course, what they really want is a buzzword, so looks like it'll have to be "cybercracker".
The media seems to like anything with the world "cyber" in it - eg., cyberpunk.   Maybe "cybercracker" would be the best moniker to push for.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
Contrary to popular belief, there are computer users out there who break into sites, don't commit deinal of service attacks, and don't alter data in any way. There really are Cr/Hackers that spend a lot of time reading and trying new things and trying to learn as much as they can about computers. It just so happens that their interests involve illegeal activity, to which they devote as much time as anyone else. No one ever focuses on these people, and that's just wrong. Additionally, the term "cracker" just shouldn't be applied to them. It's insulting, and even slightly racist. It's also not how they refer to themselves, and every human community has the right to name themselves. Not all of these people are script kiddies or website defacers. Please, show some respect where it is due...
Gee, I thought that the author meant that the Norwegians had decided to read this book instead of persecuting that poor young fool. Oh, well.
Seriously, this is a pretty bad mistake, certainly not a typo. Is there someplace (on the web, that is) we can direct these clueless folks for vocabulary and grammer help? If so, might be worth putting a link to it in a signature line. I suppose I'd have to figure out how. I suppose it would be worth while.
See what I've been reading.
I find it interesting that a commonality it derived between the 'hacker' and a open source advocate. To me there is not implied equality of the two, yet over and over on this same implied relationship is made, especially in most of ESR's writtings. I for one am glad to hear that none of ESR's writtings are cited as facts, conclusions or even insightful meanderings, within the book.
Talented security security professionals are often the same people who are breaking into computers. Why suggest that there is any kind of a "dichotomy" when you are suggesting a conflict between 1 group of people? Yes, there are security professionals who are not breaking into anything (I can't really imagine Gene Spafford busting root on www.pentagon.gov). Considering the huge amount of bullshit in the computer security field, where everyone is a self proclaimed expert, you'd really have to wonder about anyone who has no first hand experiance breaking into computers, especially if they are doing penetration tests.
You'd better believe you're hardwired, or else why does every human go through very similar life stages? Why do I feel like I need certain things? Oh yeah, sure I can just ignore my feelings and rationalize, but in the end, the instinct, genes, etc. all come out on top. It's really hard to just ignore several million years of evolution...
I'm gonna get me sum pussy tonight!
OK, I'll take on serious flamage for this. But - why not concede defeat on this terminology battle? I think that hacker is firmly imprinted on the collective retinas of our culture as a bad thing. All the whining in the world from a bunch of fucking phreaks on slashdot won't get people to say "cracker" instead of "hacker". And personally, as a programmer I've always thought of a "hack" as not partucularly good anyway. It's weird that everyone wants to hold onto this term so bad. So, I say, let them have the word. Let hackers be what hackers are thought to be by the vast majority of the world. Since we are so damn smart and so particular and so anal fucking retentive about terms, we should having no trouble adapting to some new term for ourselves to replace "hacker". Sheesh.
OK, I'll take on serious flamage for this.
No flamage necessary.
But - why not concede defeat on this terminology battle? I think that hacker is firmly imprinted on the collective retinas of our culture as a bad thing. All the whining in the world from a bunch of fucking phreaks on slashdot won't get people to say "cracker" instead of "hacker".
Very true.
And personally, as a programmer I've always thought of a "hack" as not partucularly good anyway.
And per your above comment, you actually include the term that was always used for those who wrote code - "programmer", which is what folks could go back to using.
I am not a programmer or hacker or coder.   I prefer the networking and adminstering side of things.   But I will say this - folks who go into any techy field are often labeled by the non-techs as "geeks" or "nerds" in the negative sense, invoking images of someone with taped up glasses and pocket protectors and high-water pants and such.   BUT...   look at the rapid change of the term "geek" and "nerd"?   As I noted previously, those terms were considered and portrayed (again in the media - particularly TV, movies) as negative, social outcasts, blah.   NOW, the terms "geek" and "nerd" are considered cool - and you can thank media outlets like Wired for that.   So if the term "hacker" (which I think was an attempt to get away from the stereotype that had formed around the term "programmer" as non-social outcast) was a term that programmers used for themselves to get rid of the negative image, and then the media twisted it around (almost like a one for one trade by giving up on nerd/geek and now focussing negativism on hacker), so too can hacker be reversed back to its original meaning.   But again, it'll take some time.
-- Win2k: "It's not so much that it's only 65,000 bugs, it's just that they stopped at 65,535 to prevent an overflow."
since when did the term "Hacker" mean bad? I'm getting really sick of it. I, myself, am in no way a hacker, but i do know that there are really good one's out there, and of course, there are always a few out there that do it for unethical reasons, but I believe there are way more out there that do it for the benefit of people. Take the DVD Encryption hack, wasn't that really for the good of people? I mean, it allowed people who "OWNED" the dvd's to be able to play them on their Linux Box, what's wrong with that? The user owns their computer, they own their operating system, they own the DVD, so what exactly is wrong with this?? Laws confuse the hell out of me when it comes to stuff like this. i mean if you're going to make an encryption, you should pretty much assume that it will be cracked in one way or another, so just stop your whining and make a new one. For each new encryption, there comes more cracks, it becomes a challenege to the people out there, and i think it's great. Instead of fining these people, or throwing them in jail, how about hiring them? If there the ones that can hack your encryption, shouldn't they be able to make an encryption that will be a lot more difficult to crack? (of course not impossible) These days with Holywood, tv, and the media in general, everyone is a hacker, i wish some people will get their facts straight.
tourettes
I have a college text (Intro to technology) that defines hackers as an bad word. Saying they do malicious things etc. Bleh
:p'
I think its a very VERY prevalent miconception to all new computer users.
I run a mud and I get asked 'what are you doing?'
My reply is usually 'hacking leave me alone
Then they respond with 'whoa you run the mud but you are hacking your own mud...' *sighs*
Its like a lost cause outside of the community. For every person I sit down and explain it to 20 others wont ever hear the speech and will propogate to 20 of there friends what a hacker 'really' is *laugh*
:-(
"In lieu of" means "in the place of", not "in light of" as used. The intro reads quite strangly as is ...
lol... etc, qv 'in lieu'
i *think* he means in view of.
could this be a new_type_of_error ?,
its not really a syntactical problem, or a grammatical one,
...perhaps it should be called thesauratical [relating to the inappropriate use of a thesaurus program...].
I agree. I'm an old (42) sys admin an I still have (and probably always will) negative feelings about the term hacker. In the begining it meant someone who tried to access other peoples systems and mess them up. And a hack was the worst kind of program or fix, only thing worse was a kludge. Now we want everyone one to forget that and use cracker. I don't think this will happen. May I suggest "code god" or "code wizard".Or maybe "Code Commander". There has to be something better than hacker. I know a lot of people wear this badge proudly, but like the previous poster said, let them have the damn word!
Well I am happy at least a couple people think the same way I do about this. It's interesting to note your age. I often wonder what percentage of slashdot readers are older. Sometimes it feels like we are greatly outnumbered. I am in my 30's, programming since early 1980's. When I was going through school, i *hated* the word geek. I did NOT enjoy being a geek. Oh, I had fun coding away with a few buddies, but given the choice, I certainly would have preferred to be out getting drunk and laid with the popular kids! :) Point is, it really does seem to be an age thing, and I just don't relate at all to why a real programmer or sysadmin would want the label "hacker", and I wonder how many other of us older folks are out the lurking? (i read slashdot news daily, read comments rarely, and posted only like four times - 2 in this thread!) heck, if there were a way to [reliably] filter comments by age, THAT would be interesting, and I'll bet it would be very, very telling.
This phrase means "in place of", "instead of", and not "in view of" as it seems to be being used here. Barney
Make that, "Since this is POT, [it has all those styles that you demonstrated]"
A lot of people don't seem to get this, but think about how this works: the Slashdot server code doesn't somehow "make" the text display in those styles; it just sends text to your browser, which is the one that displays it. The entire page is one big HTML document and the text of your comment is pasted into the body of that document. If it contains tags, the browser responds to them and displays the text as appropriate.
The "Plain Old Text" mode means that Slashdot does not do any preprocessing (e.g., escaping "<" characters by replacing them with "<" sequences) to the text that you enter before pasting it into the HTML document, so any tags that you type appear directly in the page that the browser receives. The one exception is that it inserts <BR> tags between paragraphs, so you don't have to. Otherwise, what you type is exactly the text that appears in the corresponding part of the HTML page, tags and all, which means that the browser will use those tags as formatting information in displaying the page.
If you use the "Extrans" mode, those special characters are replaced by escape sequences, so any tags you type appear as source rather than being interpreted as formatting information.
Note: all of the above is based on my observing how Slashdot behaves and thinking about the logic of it. It's not like i've read the SLASH source or anything.
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
I'd like to see how long the list of great female "hackers" is. I guarantee the men will out-weigh the women 10:1, maybe more. Deal with it.
Let me start off by saying that i support the distribution of DeCSS, and I don't like regional codes, etc. With that out of the way, please note this:
DeCSS, although not intended to be used as a copying device, DOES enable copying. This is because it allows the copying of raw mpeg video files to a dvd disc.
the average consumer with a dvd burner CANNOT make an exact duplicate of video dvd's because the dvdcca will not allow the manufacture of truly blank dvd's. The "blank" dvd's that you can buy are already coded on the sectors where certain authentication codes are supposed to be. This means that dvd players equipped to decrypt css will not play dvd's that have css coding in other sectors...
this is also why the mpaa's claims about decss as a copying tool hold water (at least for the non-techie public)
Regarding the age differential (younger people want the term 'hackers' without the perjorative, old fogies don't mind;), I've noticed it too, but the other way around. When I did (and still on occaision do) insist on the hacker/cracker distinction, I'm told that I'm being 'old school', or words to that effect.
As far as conceding the debate, I did that a long time ago. As someone who's primarily a legitimate techie, but has sometimes engaged in cracking, I used to be very keen on telling the difference, but it really isn't worth it. (Though I'd be quite pleased if we could get the media to adopt 'Code Gods' as suggested earlier in this thread...)
Get off it, Slashdot. Just because you decide to create some new class of "hackers" doesn't make it so. When you tell someone that you're a hacker, they're not going to think you are an "advanced computer enthusiast with exceptional skills specifically in regards to system administration and security." They'll instead assume that you are some magical creature that can gain total control of any system by pressing a few random keys.
<i>We</i> know that such a creature doesn't exist. <i>They</i> don't and they never will.
This guy is trying to sell a book to mass audience. He's not trying to peddle your "cracker" BS that only you understand, which would only confuse readers. Blaming him for not taking sides on an issue <i>you 'hackers'</i> created is insane.
You're not a hacker, Slashdot. It's pointless to reassign symantics because you want to be associated with the cool hacker but not the evil hacker. We should all waste our breath and reach a religous ferver in order to change the world just so you can call yourselves hackers! That's stupid and pointless.
We can all just live with the fact that a hacker is a computer criminal and a cracker is a tasty wheat treat instead of trying to force symantics down the collective throat of the world.
Another thing: if you 'hack code,' that implies to me that you're not doing a good job (see: hackney, a hack).
Hacking can be used for the good. For example: What about those poor people on the web who are being harassed by those sickoes that use their Internet connection to virtually RAPE people. I believe the best defense is a good offence. If I hear of someone harassing someone else, I will hack him and nuke his machine. He deserved it. End of statement. Call it being a vigilante, call it whatever you like. But it works.
- Love all computers...
i like to refer to hackers as "Hackers" (hack-ers) and crackers as "Haxors" (hack-sores) :)
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