What is a hacker?

Just so ya know, this is an old slackstuff.com post that I have moved over here. The article in this post is an old article but, the opinion viewed in this post is still valid today

This is the headline of the article at ihotdesk

Hackers ’selling fake anti-malware’

The first line in this article reads: Hackers will become more sophisticated in their attempts to defraud customers by selling them fake anti-malware, experts predict.

Really not important to those of us in the linux wold now is it? .. no. It’s very rare, maybe even non exsistent in the Linux OS. I can’t really say that I’ve heard of viruses or malware being effective on Linux machines. Maybe server exploits or cracking attempts but not malware.

From wikipedia:

“There has not yet been a single widespread Linux malware threat of the type that Microsoft Windows software currently faces; this is commonly attributed to the malware’s lack of root access and fast updates to most Linux vulnerabilities. Though the writing of such things has been on the increase in recent years and more than doubled during 2005.”

There are free and open source applications made for the Linux OS. Two of which I am familiar with are ClamAV and Avast anti-virus. I am familiar with avast because it is the free alternative antivirus that I recommend to my clients who are Windows users. I also use it on the PCs’ belonging to my family.

The first line in this article reads: Hackers will become more sophisticated in their attempts to defraud customers by selling them fake anti-malware, experts predict.

Really not important to those of us in the linux wold now is it? .. no. It’s very rare, maybe even non exsistent in the Linux OS. I can’t really say that I’ve heard of viruses or malware being effective on Linux machines. Maybe server exploits or cracking attempts but not malware.

But that is not why this article caught my eye today.

The first thing that I thought of was the fact that the term Hacker is used here. Not that computer criminals, crackers, Malicious computer users, but that HACKERS will become blah blah blah … Immediately saying that hackers are the bad guys.This really pissed me off. I like to consider myself a hacker, though a feeble one I may be, not because I am malicious or want to break into computers but because I enjoy the intrecacies of operating system internals. Hacking the system, hacking the kernel, hacking the DE and the WM! Tweaking, configuring and stretching the limits of both my knowledge and the capabilities of my computer system. That is what hacking is. Learning everything that you can to the betterment of the computing world. And that is in my own words.

Then there is the Hacker Manifesto
Quote wikipedia :

The Conscience of a Hacker (also known as The Hacker Manifesto) is a small essay written January 8, 1986 by a hacker who went by the handle (or pseudonym) of The Mentor (born Loyd Blankenship). It was written after the author’s arrest, and first published in the underground hacker ezine Phrack in Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3 of 10. Today it can be found on many websites, as well as on t-shirts and in films.

It is considered a cornerstone of hacker culture, and it gives some insight into the psychology of early hackers. It is said to have shaped the hacker community’s view of itself and its motivations. The Manifesto states that hackers choose to hack because it is a way for them to learn, and because they are often frustrated and bored by the limitations of standard society. It also expresses the satori of a hacker realizing his potential in the realm of computers.

To this day, the Manifesto acts as a guideline to hackers across the globe, especially those new to the field. It serves as an ethical foundation for hacking, and asserts that there is a point to hacking that supersedes selfish desires to exploit or harm other people, and that technology should be used to expand our horizons and try to keep the world free.

And to quote that manifesto:

“This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge… and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.
Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.”

It is the wide spead media use of the illegitimate and incorrect definition of the term hacker that puts people like myself in a bad light. Hackers do not develop skills in order to crack systems. We develop our skills because we can! And crack is used in its’ correct form here. In todays and yesterdays computer enthusiast culture, the cracker is the guy who is out to be malious and cause trouble. It is the hacker who is there to stop him.

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