Analysis of 250,000 Hacker Conversations

Orome1 writes "Imperva released a report (PDF) analyzing the content and activities of an online hacker forum with nearly 220,000 registered members, although many are dormant. The forum is used by hackers for training, communications, collaboration, recruitment, commerce and even social interaction. Commercially, this forum serves as a marketplace for selling of stolen data and attack software. The chat rooms are filled with technical subjects ranging from advice on attack planning to solicitations for help with specific campaigns."

Comments

The word 'hacker'

[telekon]

you're using it wrong.

Re:The word 'hacker'

[ackthpt]

you're using it wrong.

I've pretty much given up on it. You can't blame /., it's the Medi-uh who have tarred Hackers with by association with Crackers and criminals.

You start explaining the difference between the two to anyone and they'll think you're some kinda weirdo. You're in luck if their eyes simply glaze over rather than they go call DHS and report you as some sort of undesirable.

Re:The word 'hacker'

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look through the pdf, you'll find the forum in question in one of the screenshots that they forgot (intentional?) to scrub

Re:The word 'hacker'

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, you're quite mistaken. It's a much more general racial slur that's often directed at any white person or people, regardless of where they come from and regardless of their opinions of other races.

It's quite often used in predominantly black and Hispanic areas of cities like N.Y.C, L.A. and D.C., where it's often directed at white police officers, white public school teachers, white social workers, and other white people who are often among the most tolerant and supportive of other races.

Re:The word 'hacker'

[Vellmont]

Exactly! Words never change meaning, as we all know!

I'm sure you'll also support my quest against people who use the wrong definition of undertaker (originally meant entrepreneur, not this bastardised meaning of the funeral guy!, and doctor (what as we all know really means teacher, not medical doctor!). I'm always the first to correct people whenever they use the wrong definitions of these words. Long live the originalists!

Re:The word 'hacker'

[93 Escort Wagon]

Exactly! Words never change meaning, as we all know!

I'm sure you'll also support my quest against people who use the wrong definition of undertaker (originally meant entrepreneur, not this bastardised meaning of the funeral guy!, and doctor (what as we all know really means teacher, not medical doctor!). I'm always the first to correct people whenever they use the wrong definitions of these words. Long live the originalists!

A word of warning - if you talk about "throwing a faggot on the fire", be very careful who's within earshot.

Re:The word 'hacker'

[pnot]

I entirely agree: I keep telling people that it means "an implement for hacking, chopping wood, or breaking up earth", as it has done since the 1400s, but there's always some twat whining that it's got something to do with computer programming. Don't these people know that once a word is coined, its meaning is set in stone for eternity?

Re:The word 'hacker'

[Anonymous Coward]

Technomancer?

Re:Social Interaction?

[ackthpt]

You mean hackers get dates there?

They try .. all those love letters to Darth Vader, Mal and Tom Servo come back unopened...

Re:Social Interaction?

[BuckaBooBob]

Hackers have been getting dates longer than there have been computers around...

Go look up hot rodders... They were probably the most sought after hackers for a date in their day.. even today they are still sought after by alot of women..

No, they aren't.

[FoolishOwl]

In the first place, the meaning of a word is its use. Using "hacker" to mean people who bypass computer security to steal data or sabotage systems has been the overwhelmingly dominant use of the expression for thirty years, well-established in journalism and entertainment. I've read the essays by RMS and ESR describing the "hacker ethic", and I've read Steven Levy's "Hackers", and those are literally the only places I've ever seen "hacker" used with the positive meaning of unorthodox, enthusiastic, and highly skilled programmers, aside from the occasional references to RMS, ESR, and Levy, to complain about the prevailing usage of the term

Second, even from those accounts of the early history of programming at MIT, it was clear that "hacker" had an ambiguous meaning, at best. As I recall, Levy describes "hack" as a slang term in general use at MIT, to mean a clever and well-executed prank, such as disassembling a car and reassembling it in the owner's room. The MIT hackers were notorious for ignoring inconvenient rules governing computer access; Levy mentions how many of them took correspondence courses on locksmithing, so they could bypass locked doors.

Re:No, they aren't.

[interval1066]

The term "hacker" was coined long before computers and had nothing to do with sabotage or bypassing computer security.

Indeed. Unfortunately, the way language works, the popular usage gets dibs. See Oxford's and how they update it every year.

Re:No, they aren't.

[agrif]

I've read the essays by RMS and ESR describing the "hacker ethic", and I've read Steven Levy's "Hackers", and those are literally the only places I've ever seen "hacker" used with the positive meaning of unorthodox, enthusiastic, and highly skilled programmers, aside from the occasional references to RMS, ESR, and Levy, to complain about the prevailing usage of the term

The positive definition of the word "hacker" is in wide use in the new DIY community, and I've seen it in Make and of course BoingBoing. It's still in wide use in the subculture that it applies to. Personally I think the media has been getting (slowly) better as well, with the occasional story about hackers that isn't in the negative sense.

Normally I'm a strong supporter of dynamic language, where words mean what they're accepted to mean; I'm just emotionally attached to this particular word and it's hard to let it go. I'm still hoping we don't have to.

Re:No, they aren't.

[pnot]

The term "hacker" was coined long before computers... The term referred to the activities of people who were curious about the inner workings of devices and not satisfied with assuming a device was functioning to its full potential because a manufacturer told them so.

Can you show me a usage of the word "hacker" in your sense from before, let's say, 1950?

Of course you're right that the term "hacker" existed before computers; it's just that the various meanings were related to lumber and agriculture rather than opening toasters, as far as I'm aware.

I'd be delighted to be corrected, though.

Re:No, they aren't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like poor old Mr Decimate. For eons he was 90% of his former self, now he's pretty much destroyed.

I have real beef with

[nimbius]

security corporations that house their own research "centers" or "divisions" and expect the findings to be taken with any degree of credibility like cern. from tfr, the group basically wrote an egrep script to parse about a month or so of channel logs, then converted their "analysis" into pretty pictures. the pretty pictures are then ginned up with nuggets of knowledge like "Since forums provide a sense of community, they are a natural location for social interaction." and "Hacking has become more and more complicated with several components required to execute attacks". toss in a few buzzwords like lulzsec, and you're done after 14 pages with a very large font. TL;DR: this is produced to be consumed by customers, not technical audiences like slashdot.

h#XXors!

[xmorg]

d1D %heY +alk l3ke +h1$??????

Re:And what is this data good for?

[gl4ss]

the pie chart? it's an advertisement for imperva.

"Imperva offers award-winning database and application security, reporting and audit solutions for organizations across the globe"