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.

Comments

He's partially right

[coflow]

Hacking is a state of mind, but not in the typical sense of the word hacker. This book defines hacker as one who delights in solving problems in interesting ways, and I think *that* is a state of mind more than breaking into someone else's machine.

Re:He's partially right

[DigiShaman]

When people hear the term "Hacker" the public often associates it when computer geeks/nerds that wish to do harm. While it's really sad to see this word bastardized, I find that most enthusiasts are hackers regardless of their craft.

Case in point. If you really want to see a hacker that covers a broad spectrum of science, mathematics, and physics...look no further then your modern day performance auto tuner. Not only will you see them physically modify the engine, but often they will reprogram the computer to reflect the physical changes made.

Hacker Manifesto

[brajesh]

Quoting from Wikipedia:-
"The Manifesto states that hackers choose to hack because it is a way for them to learn, because they are frustrated and bored in school. It also expresses the satori of a hacker realizing his potential in the realm of computers."

Im not so sure

[eneville]

I think hacking really is a thirst for knowledge. Since the advent of the internet search engine, anyone can now freely research a topic. Why should hacking be limited to computers?

It is easier for someone to become a bad hacker these days. I think what divides the good from the bad is the fear of being caught, perhaps the good hackers know that the log file is forever watching.

In the true sense of hacker, someone sitting in front of a computer all waking hours does not have to be producing anything of worth.

Hackers

[starfishsystems]

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.

(For a contrasting point of view, see Paul Graham's essay on Great Hackers.)

I'm inclined to agree that hacking is a state of mind. But it seems that only a certain kind of temperment is drawn to cultivate that state of mind. In practical terms, therefore, personality matters greatly.

From long observation, I would have to say that most people don't know -- and don't want to know -- how things work. In fact, many people have developed quite elaborate defenses against knowing, strange though it may seem to the hacker mind. These people will claim that they don't have time, or that it's risky, or that it's more cost-effective to pay someone else, or that they don't see why it all has to be so hard, et cetera. Hackers seem notably disinclined to raise such objections.

I'm not sure that hackers, as a group, are naturally drawn to rigor and formalism any more than the general population, but most of them seem at least willing to go there if the situation calls for it. Hackers might prefer to immediately start prying the covers off stuff, but if that doesn't work, the more committed ones tend to have no problem reading manuals, circuit diagrams, or assembler code if that's what it takes.

Hackers seem to be well represented by the Myers-Briggs INTJ and INTP personality types. On the other hand, this combination (introverted, intuitive, thinker) is rare in the general population. Most people wouldn't dream of taking the covers off a new piece of gear. To them, it would be far safer not to know than to risk voiding the warranty.

My point is that neither position is objectively more correct than the other. It's a question of what you subjectively value. So yes, I suppose that anyone could, in principle, learn to think like a hacker. After all, it's not like there's any secret to what's involved. And we live in a highly technological era, where it would seem to make excellent sense to cultivate that way of thinking. But I don't see it happening.

hacking

[falconwolf]

I knew a guy who was arrested and sentanced to jail for one month, and 3 years probation, because he hacked into the school's library stystem. Why did he do it? Because the library had a start screen where the user could only access the card catalog over the internet, nothing else.

That's in part how I got into computers. That was when Rad Shack came out with the Trash, TRS80. The library at my school had terminals hooked up to the mainframe for the county's schools. With it students could search for colleges based on different criteria and that's all they were supposed to be used for. But a few of us figured out how to get out of the search program and were able to explore the system. Then I met some students from other high schools that were doing the same and we were able to come up with a way to chat with each other. Between this and programming in Basic on the Trash80 made me decide to major in Computer Engineering in college, it was between CE and Marine Science/Biology. I would of loved it if I could have combined the two somehow though.

And what about all the script kiddies? The ones who have no brains but found a place to download some tool to hack with? What should be done with them? If a script kidde uses a tool a hacker programmed, and that script kidde causes damage, who is responsible? Should the hacker be arrested for releasing the tool?

If anyone it's the script kiddies the authorities need to crack down on.

In my opinion, a hacker is a derogatory term. They are people who have little respect for others rights.

Falling for the mass media's distortion of what a hacker is. With how reporters use the words "hack" and "hacker" I wonder how they would like it if people started calling them hacks, which back in the early 1900s writers and reporters were called. I tell you if you really want to know what a computer hacker is you need to read Steve Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Here's an excert from an interview with Richard Stallman:

DB: Is this what might be meant by the phrase the "Hacker Ethic?"

RS: Somewhat. Indeed, the hacker ethic, I should explain first of all who hackers are. In 1971 when I joined the staff of the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab, all of us who helped develop the operating system software, we called ourselves hackers. We were not breaking any laws, at least not in doing the hacking we were paid to do. We were developing software and we were having fun. Hacking refers to the spirit of fun in which we were developing software. The hacker ethic refers to the feelings of right and wrong, to the ethical ideas this community of people had -- that knowledge should be shared with other people who can benefit from it, and that important resources should be utilized rather than wasted. Back in those days computers were quite scarce, and one thing about our computer was it would execute about a third-of-a-million instructions every second, and it would do so whether there was any need to do so or not. If no one used these instructions, they would be wasted. So to have an administrator say, "well you people can use a computer and all the rest of you can't," means that if none of those officially authorized people wanted to use the machine that second, it would go to waste. For many hours every morning it would mostly go to waste. So we decided that was a shame. Anyone should be able to use it who could make use of it, rather than just throwing it away. In general we did not tolerate bureaucratic obstructionism. We felt, "this computer is here, it was bought by the public, it is here to advance human knowledge and do whatever is constructive and useful." So we felt it was better to let anyone at all use it -- to learn about programming, or do any other kind of work other than commercial activity.

Falcon