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Would You Hire A Hacker?
theodp writes "A German security company has divided opinion in the IT industry by offering a job to the teen charged with creating Sasser. Silicon.com asks its CIO Jury: Would you hire a hacker? and finds the jury split down the middle, with one IT Director saying doing so would be like hiring serial-killing doctor Harold Shipman to treat your ailing and aged mother."
I remember a day when /. newbies would be roasted for confusing the terms hacker and cracker - now the editors do it :-/
I tend to think that just because someone creates a virus that happens to work well, and causes massive amounts of destruction isn't a horrible person at heart.
And along those lines, Osama Bin Laden isn't a bad guy. He just happened to organize an attach that casued massive amount fo destruction. After all, who hasn't fantasized about killing large numbers of people?
I don't respond to AC's.
While I somewhat agree, there is good reason the media doesn't use the term "cracker" to describe someone who writes viruses / trojans / defaces sites / etc.
"Cracker" is already a derogatory term that has been used far longer than computers have been around. If someone on the 6 o'clock news said " A cracker defaced Microsoft.com today", 95% of the American population would immediately assume they meant that "A homophobic, racist southerner defaced Microsoft.com today."
Cracker was already taken long before computers were even invented. We should have come up with a better word. It's our own fault.
Caucasian-American, Dude, please.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Why does race have to play into to it? Just because I'm white doesn't mean I destroy.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
You do realise that now people *will* images.google for pitbull? Fool.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?