Today's Hackers
By P. Abrantes AKA Ghost_Rider
[email protected]
o Intro - Letter style .............................. 1
o Media - how they report/expose the computer world . 2
o Hackers' of today ................................. 3
o Ending ............................................ 4
o Intro - Letter Style
Hello,
I just want to state that this article only reflects my opinion,
no blackbox or blacksun members, since you might relate me to them, state
their opinion in this article, so it's possible that their ideas and
opinions might diverge from mine. If you have any problem at all
regarding this article, the first flaming post should be attacking me and
only me.
After setting this straight, here is what I'll try to discuss in the few
lines written below, the way the media exploits the computer world and the way
they use the word hacker and finally the hackers of today.
Anyway, I think everyone will agree with what I'll be writing here,
if you are one of the those persons, I just ask you to stop for a while
and think about what I'm saying. Try to understand it, because I'm open
to hear your opinion and discuss it with you.
And I'll definitely not give you a lecture about the subject, I'll keep
this straight, small and simple as an opinion should be.
My best wishes to the readers,
P. Abrantes AKA Ghost_Rider
o Media - How they report/expose the computer world
We can't deny that the media rules the masses. If someone is seen as
fraud by the media, even if not being one, the chances to get their life
up and running again is really reduced. In a way that also happens in the
computer world, the world that many of us spend hours in due to our passion
for it.
How many times a journalist with little or no experience on the
subject wrote an article for a newspaper or a magazine talking about the
problems over the Internet "fear the hackers...they'll steal your credit
card #", "Hacker Group crashed 1000 computers putting company X in
financial troubles"... The word hacker is misused, I'm aware that I'm not
the first person to write about that, but I won't be the
last. Hackers are now seen as cyber-thieves, terrorists and the worst scum
you can imagine... Everything because in the headlines we see Hackers,
instead of crackers. If you prefer black-hat hackers, I think the last
term is better, since the Black and White forces show up everywhere,
when you have the power to do something you can get corrupted and use it
to do harm, or in the other hand you can just keep in the "white side" and
make things go further...
But what we have to face is that black, white, gray, X colored
hat hackers, those guys are the ones that make our world move. Those are
the ones that discover new things, get new protocols working, correct the
bugs that we might find in programs. If it weren't for the hackers heck, we
wouldn't even have Linux (hey I just pick this like an example, BSD and
other *nix variants don't come flamming me for this) not even Unix.
But nooooo, the media said "hackers are bad guys they don't deserve any
merit, they are scum" so that's the way people see them.
Unfortunately, this situation tends not to change, since such writers won't
get informed about how things really work and also because the persons
they mostly talk to think that they are hackers, are the so-called script
kiddies that are the ones looking for fame... The ones that only have to
click a mouse to cause a DoS because it's coolll... What can we do,
teach the journalists?
But hey, even if they really start knowing what's happening, where's
the sensationalism that they need in their articles? They would keep with
the old head lines because it's what it sells, "14 stupid script kiddies
clicked a mouse and got inside a company and since he didn't know what he
was doing he got busted" doesn't give the impact that "Hacker hacks into
Company" does, besides the last one is shorter.
o Hackers' of Today
A few days ago, I had a discussion with some friends, regarding to
this subject.
The hacker as the person has changed deeply in this last years a little
due to the press. What we would call scriptkiddies some years later, people
now call hackers.
The kids, that have no clue what they are doing, the kids that have only
to press the button to cause huge damage... Kids that don't think, or
just wanna seem cool to their friends, they are now called hackers... But
what about the ones we should really call hackers? The OS Kernel writers,
the network gurus, the guys that are killing themselves writing IPV6, what
are they?
Those are the hackers of yesterday, why aren't they still the
hackers of today? If it wasn't them most of the things wouldn't be like we
know. We might be all stick with 2600 b/s modems, and instead of
browsing we would be still bbsing.
They were, and they are, good at what they do, in a way, they are the
best. And isn't hacker, a way to say that someone is damn good at
something, yes, hacker doesn't mean that someone is a criminal.. And why
are people good at something? Because they have passion, desire to learn and
they like to go to edge...
The so called "Hackers of today", know nothing, they just grab the
knowledge of others and press the damn button, they want instant
hacking. There's no brain on this, there's no passion... It brings down the
whole concept. Where are all those lost nights in front of that code that
has a nifty bug that we can't find, or the code that we are trying to
exploit...
They lost the feeling of self-enthusiasm, the feeling of pushing ourselves
to our limits, the feeling of solving that damn problem that was bugging
our head for a week and that in the middle of the night, while trying to
sleep we just got the solution. They trade all that for their cool "l337
wr171ng", a cheap interview in the county magazine and
, unfortunately for some, a ticket to jail! Now that I think, I pity
them: they made an awful trade.
I'm aware, and hope you are also, that we should not completely
stereotype. Even if the majority of kids that are called hackers
are in this conditions, many others, kids or not, actually deserve
being called hackers, or close to it. But with the current situation will
they actually want to be seen as hackers? This is something I'll let you
think about.
o Ending
Summing up all the things I've said , and that some might say that it's
just bullshit, the press should see the computer world in a different
way, and inform themselves before writing articles about it, since a
misuse of terms might create a distortion of what really happens. Also
what we today call hackers, should show more heart and passion in what they
are doing, there's no point on defacing pages, or DoS'ing thousands of
hosts all over the Internet. If they actually like computers, drop the
instant program and get their sweated fingers in the source code.
But in any way I'm suggesting to go back in time, life goes on, people do
their acts and have to face them, the computer world changed and changed
to the way we now know, is it better? Well, in my opinion not really, but
every second that passes there's a chance to change everything, now the
question is will we take it?
EOF
