Author Says It's Time To Stop Glorifying Hackers

First time accepted submitter Geste writes "Diane McWhorter pleads in this NYT Op-Ed piece that it's time to stop glorifying hackers. Among other things she rails against providers' tendencies to 'blame the victim' with advice on improved password discipline. Interesting, but what lesson are we to learn from someone who emails lists of passwords to herself?"

Comments

Also time to stop

[Anonymous Coward]

glorifying actors, sports figures, politicians, generals, soldiers, writers, artists, architects, Canadians, cooks, race car drivers, the old, children, dogs, accountants, spies, computer programmers, cowboys, drug smugglers, and the disabled.

Re:Also time to stop

[i kan reed]

Goddammit, you stole the thunder out of so many potentially good posts, fast-acting AC.

Re:Also time to stop

[NotDrWho]

Come on now, no one glorifies clowns.

Re:Also time to stop

[NotDrWho]

That's because they think outside the box.

Re:Also time to stop

[ackthpt]

glorifying actors, sports figures, politicians, generals, soldiers, writers, artists, architects, Canadians, cooks, race car drivers, the old, children, dogs, accountants, spies, computer programmers, cowboys, drug smugglers, and the disabled.

So long as we still glorify the Hypnotoad, I'm cool with that.

Re:Also time to stop

[Ardyvee]

The thing is, there is the general public definition of hacker (ie a criminal), and then there is the definition of hacker by other people that is something along the lines of: somebody who likes to take things apart, exploring the system's limits; an expert on the field. The later definition includes people like the Elf Lord you mentioned, Abby (from the same show), most security consultants, criminals, etc.

Therefore, his comment is valid for a certain definition of hacker (and most hackers don't reach the news because they are security consultants, or work in IT in a company, or report the issues to the companies who don't go "YOU HACKED INTO MY SYSTEM NEED TO SUE"). And thus: the biggest problem IT people have when communicating with the rest is that neither side really talks the same language. How are we going to communicate effectively and solve issues if we don't really share the same language?

You keep using that word

[Overzeetop]

Note to the press: "Hackers" doesn't mean what you think is means.

Re:You keep using that word

[mwvdlee]

Indeed.

There's a difference between somebody who takes a list of passwords and abuses it and somebody who finds security issues and reports them responsibly.
There's also a difference between somebody who it a victim and somebody who gmails list of passwords to herself.

Oblig. car analogy: The person stealing your car is a "criminal", the owner of that car is a "victim". The person bypassing the lock on his own car and then reporting the issue to the car manufacturer is a "hacker". The person keeping a keychain in her unattended car, with keys of all her properties, conveniently labelled what each key is for and where it can be found, is called an "Idiot".

One does not preclude the other.

Re:You keep using that word

[nomadic]

The commonly-accepted usage of words is determined by the majority. Whatever "hacker" used to mean, it now means someone who bypasses computer security systems to commit crimes.

Re:You keep using that word

[lgw]

The difference between "idiot" and "at fault" is huge.

Users will be idiots. Does any IT admin deny this fact? If your system only protects users who aren't idiots, you're a sorry excuse for an admin.

Make your system robust against weak passwords. This is not rocket science. If it's something important, use two-factor auth. If not, make account recovery easy - put real thought and effort into it! And for goodness sake, make sure your DB of password hashes doesn't become public - that's all in your hands, and it's completely your fault if that happens, weak passwords or strong.

Re:You keep using that word

[Aighearach]

Your system cannot protect the idiots from themselves. That is a trap you fell into somewhere. Most likely you simply agreed it would be nice if it was so. "Yeah, why can't we protect all our users?!"

This isn't brain science or rocket surgery. The idiots have to have a way to access the system. They will NOT remember strong passwords, they will write them in a stupid place or keep them in gmail with public information as the account recovery. And guess what, you can't control gmail. Put some real thought into it, your idiot users will hand their access away to the first thief, and you can't do much to protect them.

All you can do is protect your system and try to make anything important difficult enough to access that the idiots can't get in.

Re:You keep using that word

[Rinikusu]

I currently have over a dozen passwords I have to keep memorized for accessing various systems (each with their own unique login IDs and passwords), many of which are changed every 3-6 weeks and do stringent checks on previously used passwords. That's just for work, and not including the dozen or so username/passwords I use online in my personal time. Seriously, it's time to rethink passwords because if you don't like that I write all this shit down in a spreadsheet that I print out and stuff in a binder, well, it beats the other guys post-its on their monitors.

Time to stop glorifying the NYT Op-Ed

[coldsalmon]

Stop falling for the clickbait, Slashdot.

Blaming the victim?

[Anonymous Coward]

Next thing you know we'll stop teaching kids to look both ways before crossing the street because we're teaching people not to drive drunk. But this just isn't how the world works.

Victim blaming

[LocalH]

Why the hell is there a trend nowadays to call it "victim blaming" to give people advice on protecting themselves? Is it really such a bad idea for people to do things to protect their passwords?

I guess telling people to run antivirus is now "victim blaming", too.

Re:Victim blaming

[lagomorpha2]

Don't teach users not to run mysterious .exe files from suspicious people without antivirus software! Teach scammers not to scam!

US blame culture.

[JustNiz]

So she emailed a list of passwords to herself, didn't bother encrypting it, and kept it in her on-line email account for 9 months, then she's actually surprised when she gets hacked?

I look forward to the day when America gets back to the point where people start taking responsibility for their own actions again, instead of always looking for someone else to blame (and sue) for their own stupidity.

The Song of Their People

[Sponge Bath]

I'm a hacker,
I'm a snacker,
I'm a mid-night wacker.
I get my lovin' on the net.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

So says the NY Times.

[davydagger]

We glorify much worse in society.

Our top artist, Jay-Z is a man who made a career spanning over a decade rapping about being a criminal(gangsta rapper), and glorying a life soaked in drugs, loose women, and crime.

On the other hand, we have movies like zero dark thirty which glorify torture.

We glorify politicians who lie, cheat, and steal, and we encourage eachother to lie cheat and steal for them.

When a kid is bullied in school they are generally blamed for being weak, socially unfit, or making themselves a target.

Most celebrities, the people who we all mimick, do drugs, drive under the influence, sleep around, and act without a care for the rest of us. If we admit we don't like them, something is wrong with us. We re-adjust our social values around them.

We glorify the press and the news, and when they get caught lying to us, often to assassinate someones character for either social or political reasons, strut around as if their position makes them nobility, and violate each and every rule they tell us they abide by with enough regularity its safe to say they don't exist, we extoll them as the saviors of democracy.

But yes, its hackers. Hackers are making society a terrible place. If computer break ins where any other field besides computers, it would be socially accetable. If you get take advantage of financially, or make a silly mistake, well its proof the capitalists are smarter than you. If the bank takes advantage of your lack of time to fight them, its because they deserve to prey on the weak. If you break into the bank computers because the same smarty pants bankers are to daft to learn your field, your a terrorist.

Somehow hackers are glorified? Another shitty op-ed from the NY Times, a fine publication with a long history of clueless op-ed writers, and hideously snobbish double standards.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, the NYT is a fine publication, but the opinion editorials are run by a bunch of smarmy yuppie shitheads without any real vantage point in society.