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Hacker High School Starts to Spread
thelordx writes "Hacker High School, an initiative from the non-profit Institute for Security and Open Methodology, pioneers of the OSSTMM have received some media coverage for their Hacker High School Program. It's a license-free open-source program that provides security and privacy-awareness teaching materials to teachers.
Here's the link to the BBC stream and article about the project."
The concept is interesting, although I hardly see this type of thing ever getting very big. Unfortunately, especially in the U.S., too many people will be against this kind of alternative teaching, probably likening it to getting kids to stay off drugs by encouraging them to try them first. I doubt there'd be much support for this outside the ISECOM, even though this type of experience would benefit anyone going into the network administration sector.
;)
FTA: "The school believes there could be jobs out there for this new breed of ethical hacker."
There are, and have been for quite some time. The FBI employs at least one former hacker, that I know of. There is an article that explores this a bit more, though it's a little dated.
Besides, high school kids already have too many freedoms: open campus lunches, driver's licenses, free thinking. We need to put an end to this now!
Digital Sailor
How many teachers do you think are going to hear about this and react as following: "hacker highshool? why would we want to teach our kids to be hackers (computer criminals)". Perhaps they could have called it something involving the word security or protection.
Philosophy.
I saw this on the news earlier. They seemed to deliver it VERY poorly. Rather than explain how "hacking" is infact "testing the system" as it came across to me, it pretty much played into the steriotype of "we break into computers".
Of course this was "Click online" which never gives you any facts, it just goes "oh look a new iPod" or "theres more security holes, work out for yourself how to avoid being owned".
I like muppets.
What the word hack, hacking et al.. really mean?
hack1 Audio pronunciation of "hack" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (hk)
v. hacked, hacking, hacks
v. tr.
Slang. To cope with successfully; manage: couldn't hack a second job
(removed the other meanings that don't really pertain to its use in with computers)
I always thought of the term hacking as someone who could take what was available to them, and figure out a way while tinkering around to get whatever it was to do what YOU wanted it to. You hacked a solution.
With the word associated with all this security mumbo jumbo now-a-days people lost track of what 'hackers' really were years ago.. some of the very people who pioneered a lot of existing technology we use today.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Theoretically speaking is good. Practically speaking is not. I just got out of high school and even though a program like this would've been interesting, I know, that not everyone has the maturity to use this information. Yes, it's good, that they teach you how to protect yourself, but giving this information is as good as if they give you a gun and try to teach you how to use a gun "ethically". Some people will actually serve the purpose of the program, while others simply will not.
Like I said, theoretically speaking, it's OK. Practically speaking, it will fail their purpose.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
... need to organize a come up with a new name. The media has taken this term, which originally had a positive meaning, bastardized it when viruses became more widespread (since the journalists weren't bright enough to come up with their own term or use the right term; "Well, we heard them say hacker in their computer mumbo jumbo talk that we can't understand, so we'll just use that."), and the misusage of the word has gotten so bad that even Slashdotters and other "computer geeks" use "hacker" when the word "cracker" should be used.
The computing community needs to come up with a new term that means, "a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary, usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." (quote from Jargon File). Perhaps the word "tinkerer" fits this description finely. Or, we can borrow a word from another language. Perhaps we can create a brand new word, I don't know.
The point is, the media has stolen the word "hacker" and made the word defined to mean something completely different than it used to mean, Joe Average is using the media's definition, and older computer "hackers" can't use the term without being looked suspiciously. The word has been destroyed by the media. We need a new term, and the sooner, the better.
Not unless I hack together a robot. A girl robot.
This is going to be the best senior prom ever!