BusinessWeek on Hacker Hunters

prostoalex writes "You keep hearing about FBI, Secret Service or other law enforcement authorities involved in pursuing international cybercrime gangs, but who are those people and how does the cyberlaw enforcement work? Business Week talks about hacker hunters and people they're after. A large portion of the article is dedicated to describing the global scope of such activities with Russia, Eastern Europe and China leading the ranks for criminal hideouts."

Comments

Re:The "H" word

[rastakid]

Could we please try to restore the word "hacker" a more positive meaning on mainstream media?

*sigh* Could we just once please stop this endless discussion?

What does it matter what a hacker and a cracker is? As if a programmer gets more attention once the media start to call him a hacker and call the phishers crackers. Also: definitions can change, you know that?

Stop the shit

[imsabbel]

Well, why not whine about that gay now mean homosexual and not jolly or that spam should only used to descripe some kind of food.

Re:The "H" word

[DogDude]

it is in the very nature of a hacker not to care what ignorant people think.

It's also in the very nature of a hacker to know *everything* and to be a pompous ass that nobody listens to, anyway.

Re:The "H" word

[Edward Faulkner]

You misunderstand me. I'm not fighting one way or the other. I'm stating a fact. Hackers won't change, because hackers don't care.

I can assure you there are many people who use "hacker" and "to hack" frequently in their everyday language, and if you suggested that they abandon the term simply because John Q. Public uses it differently, they'd laugh at you.

All language is context sensitive. Know your audience and you'll be understood. It's pointless to critize BusinessWeek, but it's similarly pointless to criticize people who use the term among themselves for the older meaning.