Hackers 101

Here are some interesting definitions of the term 'hacker' as food for thought.

"A hacker is a person intensely interested in the arcane and recondite workings of any computer operating system. Most often, hackers are programmers. As such, hackers obtain advanced knowledge of operating systems and programming languages. They may know of holes within systems and the reasons for such holes. Hackers constantly seek further knowledge, freely share what they have discovered, and never, ever intentionally damage data."

- Armchair Revolutionaries article, Difference Btw Hackers N Crackers

"A hacker is someone who thinks outside the box. It's someone who discards conventional wisdom, and does something else instead. It's someone who looks at the edge and wonders what's beyond. It's someone who sees a set of rules and wonders what happens if you don't follow them. A hacker is someone who experiments with the limitations of systems for intellectual curiosity."

– Bruce Schneier, security technologist and author, from his article What is a Hacker?

From the readings, I realised that to understand the world of hackers it is important to understand their history and the various categories they fall in. Historically, there are two types of hackers : the old school and the new school. While it is debatable that the new school hackers are less 'ethical', one can also say that there is not much difference between the two groups and that they actually share the same principles and motivation. After all, it was the old school hackers that inspired and set the scene for the new school hackers.

Old School	New School
Silicon Valley industry giants “who have turned corporate” David Lightman (WarGames) Robert Morris (Internet worm unleasher) Information wants to be free MIT, Harvard, Cornell students (50s-70s) Founders of companies that made the computer revolution Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs of Apple No PC World threatened to become a secret Mostly individual effort	Culture is based around questions of technology to better understand cultural attitudes towards technology and their relationship to it Cryptography – violates ‘hacker ethic’ 80s and 90s child raised on WarGames, Hackers and The Net Founders of hacker groups e.g. Legion of Doom, Masters of Deception PCs and modems World full of secrets Team effort

While categorically, there are four types of hackers who hack for very different reasons:

- Crackers : they hack with malicious intent

- Hacktivists : they as a form of political activism
- Hobbyist hackers : they hack to learn and explore and share with other hobbyists
- Research and security hackers: they are concerned with discovering security vulnerabilities and writing the code fixes.

The inaccurate image of a hacker as a 'white' young man set to create a revolution or chaos by entering computers and computer networks is just another media stereotype! And I am so glad to have learned that because I'm just not a big fan of stereotyping.