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Everyone Is A Hacker In Training
An anonymous reader writes "Michal Zalewski was recently interviewed by O'Reilly's Onlamp. During the interview, he stated a belief that hacking is a state of mind. From the article: 'I don't think that (good) hackers have any special, hardwired mental abilities or specific personality traits, and I do believe you can easily learn to think like a hacker, even when you come from a different background.'" The interview goes on to discuss the overall need for better security in protocols and communications.
There is no skill involved in hitting things, just as there is no skill involved in running a "script". However even with a script and a punch you can still bring harm.
With training you can learn how and where to hit someone to inflict pain, debilitate them, or kill them. Just like anyone with an iota of programming knowledge can shutdown a server, destroy the data on it, or bring down entire networks.
Like martial arts, thankfully those that do know how to kill someone with their hands and those that do know how to do malicious things with a computer, do not do them. Anyone can write a virus, and knowing programming I know that you could make a very nasty virus to do very nasty things.
But that doesn't happen. Usually what happens is those who might know the tools of the trade or a few moves don't have the discipline. They lack the ability to know that "you can" is different than "you should".
However, there is no kung-fu quality of knowing how to "hack". There is a quality to knowing how a computer works, how they can be exploited, and how they can be repaired. It's the knowledge of computers that will get a person to a point in which they can contribute to the community, sometimes make money, and sometimes just get noticed.
Then there's the smeg-heads who are the l33tz0r hax0rts d00dz that ... don't get it.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed