I've never liked the term 'cracker', for several reasons. First, it already has several meanings, such as something you eat with cheese, or as already mentioned a po'white Southerner. I dislike using 'cracker' in a computing sense mainly because it only makes sense in comparison to hacker, and that is precisely the behavior we are trying to change. No newspaper is going to use a headline like "FBI traces origin of cracker", because it sounds like they're investigating saltines or something. So, the editor thinks, "what rhymes with cracker?" and comes up with "hacker".
To change people's behavior, we should think of a catchy term that the media will prefer to use rather than hacker. The best way to do this is to find a term that so-called crackers will use to identify themselves, rather than calling themselves hackers. Obviously, "luser" and "script kiddie" won't work, even if they are accurate descriptions. The term must be kewl, but unambiguous, obviously relating to breaking in to computer systems.
How about e-bandit, webjacker, or net outlaw? I know, those all suck, but maybe someone else can think of something better.
I currently live in Japan, which is generally regarded as a very safe country. Almost nobody owns guns.
So, when kids in schools lose it, they stab their teachers with knives. This has already happened several times over the past couple of years. The always-helpful media pointed to a TV drama where a "cool" character carried a knife. (So far there has been no appearace of a Knife Control lobby, but you never know.)
When kids become killers, something is clearly wrong. Blaming weapons, or the media, or computer games does nothing to stop the problem. I honestly don't know what will. But, if I had children, I know I would be talking with them right now and listening carefully to what they have to say.
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I've never liked the term 'cracker', for several reasons. First, it already has several meanings, such as something you eat with cheese, or as already mentioned a po'white Southerner. I dislike using 'cracker' in a computing sense mainly because it only makes sense in comparison to hacker, and that is precisely the behavior we are trying to change. No newspaper is going to use a headline like "FBI traces origin of cracker", because it sounds like they're investigating saltines or something. So, the editor thinks, "what rhymes with cracker?" and comes up with "hacker".
To change people's behavior, we should think of a catchy term that the media will prefer to use rather than hacker. The best way to do this is to find a term that so-called crackers will use to identify themselves, rather than calling themselves hackers. Obviously, "luser" and "script kiddie" won't work, even if they are accurate descriptions. The term must be kewl, but unambiguous, obviously relating to breaking in to computer systems.
How about e-bandit, webjacker, or net outlaw? I know, those all suck, but maybe someone else can think of something better.
It's not just a U.S. thing.
I currently live in Japan, which is generally regarded as a very safe country. Almost nobody owns guns.
So, when kids in schools lose it, they stab their teachers with knives. This has already happened several times over the past couple of years. The always-helpful media pointed to a TV drama where a "cool" character carried a knife. (So far there has been no appearace of a Knife Control lobby, but you never know.)
When kids become killers, something is clearly wrong. Blaming weapons, or the media, or computer games does nothing to stop the problem. I honestly don't know what will. But, if I had children, I know I would be talking with them right now and listening carefully to what they have to say.