Hacker Culture and its Misportrayal by Media and Government

It is totally against the beliefs of a true hacker to harm people's computers. Those people that send around all the viruses and crash all those websites are NOT considered to be hackers by actual hackers. They themselves claim to be hackers because they think it's cool ( due to movies they've seen ). Also, the primary goal of a hacker is to learn everything possible in one's lifetime; to know everything, so almost all of a hacker's actions are based around the principal of learning something. Using a trojan horse is not in anyway educational, so real hackers do not use them, unless it's one they made themselves. Hackers also have a general hatred of authority. Authority is used to control people and control what they think, which hackers believe is "evil". Therefore, hackers will try to disrupt authoritarian environments as much as possible. That is why so many hackers are seen as anarchists. That is also why the government does not like hackers. It's because the government knows that hackers are able to truly keep them in check without much reprisal ( only about 5% of hackers are actually caught ). Hackers also believe that being bored is bad to the point of being almost evil. Doing anything that is boring or repetitive means that they are wasting time they could be using to learn something or share their knowledge. About the only exception to doing repetitive things is maybe a mind-clearing exercise or to try to learn a new skill.

Hackers, in accordance with the goal of learning as much as possible, believe that information should be free. This means that hackers believe that all intellectual property should be free and accessible to anyone who wants it. That is why hackers are some of the main opposition against Microsoft, which sells it's software for prices, which are totally insane, while manipulating people into paying for their products by making them "easy to use". However, Microsoft products often seem to be geared so much towards ease-of-use that they loose their functionality. Meanwhile, open-source software, which was started by hackers, is dirt cheap ( often downloadable for free ), and has higher quality than most commercial software. When most commercial software has a bug, it takes the company years sometimes to make a patch to fix it, and then the company charges people for the patch. OSS software is usually patched within three days of the problem being discovered, and is free to have patched. Due to the way corporations cheat people, hackers generally hate big business. This is one of the reasons that hackers tend to build their own custom computers and write their own software ( which they distribute for free ). The goal is to out companies like Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, and McAfee out of business. Bill Gates is not seen in a good light by hackers. Almost all of the code for his programs is stolen from other companies. Bill just renames a few things, slaps a Microsoft label on it, and sells it for five times what it's worth. His company also releases products which they know have flaws in them, and wait to fix the problems with them until someone complains.

One aspect of hacker culture that has been studied for years is the elitist attitude of hackers. Hackers are a very tight group, and it's hard to get in with them, except the occasional public board or internet chat. Many people see this as us trying to exclude people from our knowledge, or just being mean. There are reasons that we are so tight though. We constantly have to worry about the FBI monitoring us, wannabes who think of hacking like crackers do ( we don't want to give them the knowledge to become a cracker ), and media reporters ( they are highly annoying ). We usually try to keep such people away from us by hiding that we are hackers. In cases in which that does not work, there have been more forceful methods used, such as banning people from our chat rooms ( that's why we use IRC so much; we can ban people ). There are some of us that go overboard that try to scare people away, using anything from faked mail to crashing their computer, but these "extremists" are generally looked down on by hackers. An aspect of our culture that makes a lot of people mad is that we generally have an intolerance of people with a lesser intelligence and look down on such people. We look at the matter in terms of "if people would try to learn, then they wouldn't be stupid, therefore stupid people are lazy". While that may not be fair, neither are the ideas that the general population has about us.

Something that is commonly commented on about hackers is that many of us do not have many real life friends. People just assume that we are anti-social or "geeks" or something because we don't talk to many people in real life. However, we do talk to a lot of people online. People will say that we talk to people online because we can't handle talking to real people, in person. The interesting thing is, among us there is no racism, sexism, religious persecution, or judgments based on appearance. The only way we can find out enough information about each other to have those reactions to people is if we voluntarily give out that information. Whereas in "real-life", there is all sorts of persecution, simply because people are able to actually see and touch each other. Among us, all that really matters is your mind ( and maybe your spelling and typing skills ).

Hackers, despite their goal of attaining knowledge, often have an extreme dislike for school. Our idea is that "Why should we go to school for 8 hours, when we can learn the same thing on the internet in 2 hours?". In many cases, hackers are much more intelligent than their teachers, and many have the knowledge to take the teacher's jobs. In fact, at the time of writing this, I am teaching the computer class at my school, and I am only sixteen years old. As far as school goes, hackers fit into two basic categories, slackers or over-achievers. Those who fall into the slacker category are there because they find school so boring ( because they know all the material already ), that they can't concentrate on it. Then there are the over-achievers that surpass the rest of their class. The over-achievers generally do this with the actual intention of trying to get other people to follow the example ( reducing the amount of stupid people in the world ), or in some case, to make the teachers look bad, as they often surpass the teacher, which leads to correcting the teacher and arguing with them over the class material.

The government generally seems to hate hackers. Most of the time a hacker is caught, the government makes an example out of them to try to scare other hackers. A perfect example is the way that the government treated Kevin Mitnick; basically ruining his life. The reason that the government is so afraid of hackers is that hackers generally dislike the government, and hackers are the only group in the United States that could successfully make an attack on the government or start a revolution without much effort or fear of reprisal. The government relies on computers, especially the military, and hackers have the ability to take away those computers or control them, thus crippling or controlling the government. While no hacker has ever done that, the government is so afraid that is will happen that they want to expunge the country of hackers. What they fail to realize is that other countries have a lot of hackers too, and many of those countries hire them to make "cyber warfare" on other countries. The United States government is not equipped to deal with that kind of threat, so the hackers of the United States end up being the only real defense. Removing us from the country would leave the United States wide open to attack. The government claims to have an info war facility in Washington DC that is for dealing with these sorts of attacks. If that is the case, then why is it that people, in our own country, are able to repeatedly break into government computers, sometimes without even being detected? It is because of this that most attacks against government computers are not reported and are often covered up by the government itself.

To get rid of hackers, the government has tried to use propaganda to persuade the public to believe that all hackers are just like the crackers mentioned at the beginning of this paper. They do this by only reporting the bad things that have happened due to crackers and hackers. Most people are unaware that most of the computer technology we have was invented by hackers. Steve Wozniak, the founder of Apple Computers, is a self-professed hacker. The people that made the internet accessible to everyone were hackers. They took the control of it from the universities and government. Hackers are the people that brought high-level encryption to the public, providing privacy online, and the people who blew the whistle on the NSA's civilian surveillance system called ECHELON. Hackers are for the people and for the good of the world, and the government wants to deprive the world of us?
I hope that this paper has at least shown the viewpoint of hackers to the reader, if not brought them over to the side of hackers.

	Brilliant, utterly brilliant. (1.00 / 1) (#7)
	by Lysidas on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 07:52:30 PM PST

	Finally something worth commenting on. Well-written, informative, and, surprisingly, correct. I have nothing more to say about this masterpiece. Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my clothes.

	It was more precious than a baby's rosy cheeks. (1.00 / 1) (#13)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 10:48:52 PM PST

	Attn: kurobots. I am not referring to spanking baby bottoms, which is merely 4th behind circumcision. Please dont write an article about this comment.

	And this is from the guy who violates agreements (1.00 / 1) (#59)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri May 31st, 2002 at 11:03:09 AM PST

	You can't listen to Lysidas, he can't even follow his AT&T license agreement. He knowingly violated. I think AT&T should prosecute.

	I don't get it. (1.00 / 1) (#8)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 08:21:40 PM PST

	Looks to me like the standard pre-teen techie-wannabe diatribe. Could you highlight the portions that won't make my eyes bleed? --Anonymous Reader #24601

	More liberalist tripe. (4.00 / 2) (#9)
	by mfk on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 09:34:19 PM PST

	Having been a longtime resident of Adequacy.org, I must ask what crack the editors were smoking when they rejected my well-written military submission in favor of this. I will disembowel this 'troll', piece by piece. Hackers, in accordance with the goal of learning as much as possible, believe that information should be free. This means that hackers believe that all intellectual property should be free and accessible to anyone who wants it. Very well, sir. How about you post your credit card numbers and Social Security Number for all to see? After all, information should be free? That is why hackers are some of the main opposition against Microsoft, which sells it's software for prices, which are totally insane, while manipulating people into paying for their products by making them "easy to use". Evidently, you have no concept of how to run a business. Windows XP is well worth the $400 I spent on it; that $400 is a further incentive to Microsoft to produce Windows Longhorn, which will further accelerate the 3D graphics industry. However, Microsoft products often seem to be geared so much towards ease-of-use that they loose their functionality. Baloney. If you have spent more than five minutes working with a Microsoft product, you would have learned that Microsoft products are fast, stable, and powerful enough for the power user. Meanwhile, open- source software, which was started by hackers, is dirt cheap ( often downloadable for free ), and has higher quality than most commercial software. When most commercial software has a bug, it takes the company years sometimes to make a patch to fix it, and then the company charges people for the patch. OSS software is usually patched within three days of the problem being discovered, and is free to have patched. You hackers are all alike; how soon we forget the Linux VM fiasco, which once again proves the inferiority of Open Sauce. The fact that people cannot agree on what goes in /dev and what goes in /opt or whatever leads to 5000 different versions of an Open Sores program, all incompatible with each other. Open Sores programs are patched frequently - too frequently, that is. And heaven forbid the user should EASILY install the patch Due to the way corporations cheat people, hackers generally hate big business. This is one of the reasons that hackers tend to build their own custom computers and write their own software ( which they distribute for free ). The goal is to out companies like Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, and McAfee out of business. It is here that I must object to this article once again. The poster is clearly part of a terrorist organization; he even clearly states that a hacker's goal is to drive stolid all-American companies out of business. Furthermore, he advocates building cobbled-together computers, which further raise support costs for these noble companies. Bill Gates is not seen in a good light by hackers. Almost all of the code for his programs is stolen from other companies. Bill just renames a few things, slaps a Microsoft label on it, and sells it for five times what it's worth. His company also releases products which they know have flaws in them, and wait to fix the problems with them until someone complains. Bill Gates has revolutionised computing as we know it. Had he not come along, we would still be fighting incompatibilities between a Commodore 1024GB and a Altair Z1000. These allegations that Mr. Gates has stolen code are clearly untrue; all of Microsoft's technology is legally licensed. Perhaps a few knock-off companies have successfully sued Microsoft - but the only reason said companies have won against Microsoft is because of the injustice caused by the legal system. It is clearly obvious you have not paid a visit to Windows Update; but your general ignorance of Windows cannot be admitted in this article! One aspect of hacker culture that has been studied for years is the elitist attitude of hackers. Hackers are a very tight group, and it's hard to get in with them, except the occasional public board or internet chat. Many people see this as us trying to exclude people from our knowledge, or just being mean. There are reasons that we are so tight though. We constantly have to worry about the FBI monitoring us, wannabes who think of hacking like crackers do ( we don't want to give them the knowledge to become a cracker ), and media reporters ( they are highly annoying ). We usually try to keep such people away from us by hiding that we are hackers. In cases in which that does not work, there have been more forceful methods used, such as banning people from our chat rooms ( that's why we use IRC so much; we can ban people ). There are some of us that go overboard that try to scare people away, using anything from faked mail to crashing their computer, but these "extremists" are generally looked down on by hackers. An aspect of our culture that makes a lot of people mad is that we generally have an intolerance of people with a lesser intelligence and look down on such people. We look at the matter in terms of "if people would try to learn, then they wouldn't be stupid, therefore stupid people are lazy". While that may not be fair, neither are the ideas that the general population has about us. Many criminal organizations exhibit the same characteristics that hacker organizations do. Elitism, secrecy - you say "Information should be free" but you refuse to release that information to whoever is 'below' you. Perhaps you should re-examine yourself and the mantra you're preaching, preferably with a good whack on the head to boot. Something that is commonly commented on about hackers is that many of us do not have many real life friends. People just assume that we are anti-social or "geeks" or something because we don't talk to many people in real life. However, we do talk to a lot of people online. People will say that we talk to people online because we can't handle talking to real people, in person. The interesting thing is, among us there is no racism, sexism, religious persecution, or judgments based on appearance. The only way we can find out enough information about each other to have those reactions to people is if we voluntarily give out that information. Whereas in "real-life", there is all sorts of persecution, simply because people are able to actually see and touch each other. Among us, all that really matters is your mind ( and maybe your spelling and typing skills ). This is perhaps the funniest paragraph in the entire article. In the previous paragraph, he defends his elitist attitude, but now he says there is no racism or sexism among hackers. Hackers are all pimply-faced teens in their parents' basement using Mommy's cable connection to DoS upstanding sites. If you mention you are a female, you are almost certain to be stalked by some sex-crazed hacker who hasn't got laid yet. If you mention you are black, you're automatically excluded, hackers are white males only. Hackers, despite their goal of attaining knowledge, often have an extreme dislike for school. Our idea is that "Why should we go to school for 8 hours, when we can learn the same thing on the internet in 2 hours?". In many cases, hackers are much more intelligent than their teachers, and many have the knowledge to take the teacher's jobs. In fact, at the time of writing this, I am teaching the computer class at my school, and I am only sixteen years old. Evidently, you need a good whack on the bottom with a paddle, or perhaps a good beating had corporal punishment not been outlawed. This only further proves that ignorant teenagers are taking over our public schools; hell, I'll bet you don't even have a lesson plan, you just adlib while the rest of the class either sleeps or plays Solitaire. Furthermore, this only proves my previous truth that hackers are all pimply-faced teenagers. While you may have a general proficiency with computers, can you tell me which chemicals combine to form disodium inosinate? Can you tell me who Xerxes is, or who won the Battle of Hastings? These are all very important blocks in a basic education, none of which can be accomplished by playing Quake all day The government generally seems to hate hackers. Most of the time a hacker is caught, the government makes an example out of them to try to scare other hackers. A perfect example is the way that the government treated Kevin Mitnick; basically ruining his life. The reason that the government is so afraid of hackers is that hackers generally dislike the government, and hackers are the only group in the United States that could successfully make an attack on the government or start a revolution without much effort or fear of reprisal. The government relies on computers, especially the military, and hackers have the ability to take away those computers or control them, thus crippling or controlling the government. While no hacker has ever done that, the government is so afraid that is will happen that they want to expunge the country of hackers. What they fail to realize is that other countries have a lot of hackers too, and many of those countries hire them to make "cyber warfare" on other countries. The United States government is not equipped to deal with that kind of threat, so the hackers of the United States end up being the only real defense. Removing us from the country would leave the United States wide open to attack. The government claims to have an info war facility in Washington DC that is for dealing with these sorts of attacks. If that is the case, then why is it that people, in our own country, are able to repeatedly break into government computers, sometimes without even being detected? It is because of this that most attacks against government computers are not reported and are often covered up by the government itself. Mr. Mitnick has been convicted of wire fraud; there is no excuse for breaking into other peoples' computers. You hackers forget Operation Sundevil, which was a little sting to show you hackers that the government is not your 'toy' to do with as you please - hell, you hackers got your reprisal with Operation Sundevil. No sir, Uncle Sam will not be deterred even if hackers had crashed the AT&T phone network. The United States Army invented computer security as we know it; 4096-bit encryption is considered military-grade for a REASON, you know Again, I must object. The subtitle of Adequacy clearly states "News for GROWN-UPS. This preteen is not welcome here.

	Wow.. (5.00 / 1) (#11)
	by DG on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 10:13:35 PM PST

	Your lack of understanding of pc history and the legal system astounds me. Question, have you been visiting richmond? Becuse that would be the only reason you would post their lies. This case in point you can not tell me that bill gates revolutionised computing, that pure propaganda to the highest digree. Apple started it, then ibm came out with their pc and compaq reverse engineered it so they could sell the hardware. All MS did was follow in IBM's wake and snatch the market from ibm, when they came up on monopoly charges. Seems to me you know nothing about how microsoft makes money. They don't make money via someone going to the store and buying it, they make it through contracts and licences and OEM dealers. Linux does have problems, but you seem to be stuck in this idea that linux wants to work like a software firm. which if you read about it, it does not. By the way look at personal information as the only thing we don't want free. There are digrees even in free info and personal info is one of them. © 2002, DG. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.

	a few things (5.00 / 1) (#14)
	by detikon on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 10:59:46 PM PST

	This article seems more to me to have been written by a wannabe or some confused individual. All information should be free? No not ALL of it. Ass for the credit card crack someone made in another post it's called Right to Privacy. How would you like it if someone tried to sell you a car but wouldn't tell you a damn thing about it? As for DG and mfk...you're both confused. The gist of it is, is that a company (A) would develop a product and license it to another company (B) package, market, sell and provide support. This isn't the only way it was done. The licensing could be open or restrictive such as require any improvements from company B to be resubmitted back to company A. Company A could also sell a version of the software. While Bs may be user friendly and easy to use, As would be feature rich, compact and fast. There are a lot of companies that still do this. Some do things that are somewhere in between. Microsoft on the other hand is an evil player. They love software under BSD style licenses (they reall hate the GPL because of this and it should show they really can't right better code). Note: If you were ever to see the Windows code you'd think it was sloppy and absolute crap. Bill Gates even admitted during the second stage of the ongoing antitrust trial that the Windows code base has become sloppy and bloated. Microsoft has licensed code before in the old days and done some good buy it. It licensed Unix code (Xenix) and turned around and licensed it to SCO now owned by Caldera. Part of the agreement keeps MS from ever releasing a Unix. However, it does not prevent them from release a Unix-like (ie BSD, Linux). It only prevents them from developing a Unix-variant (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris). MS has done a great deal of back stabbing. One such case is Kerberos. The agreement allowed MS to implement Kerberos into the NT code base in exchange for increased development and/or funding as well as some information sharing. MS later turned around and told them to fuck off. Microsoft has also been known to blatantly steal (ie DoubleSpace) and even dare companies to sue them (Go). They then watched as the would-be competitor went bankrupt from legal fees. Sometimes however it has come back to bite them in the ass (Stacker--DoubleSpace and Sun Microsystems -- Java). Oh a special note for Yoshi. IE is based on Mosaic. Don't believe me? Open IE and Click Help >> About Internet Explorer. You'll find something interesting about the web broswer that has become integrated up the yin-yang. Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc. Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script.*

	too much $$$ (4.00 / 1) (#17)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 01:36:08 AM PST

	You spent $400 for Windows XP? I can get the full version of Home Edition for $200 and Professional for $300 at Best Buy. The upgrade are $99 and $199 repectively. Next Longhorn isn't about 3d anything. It's about further tying in .NET crap to the Windows desktop. Sorry but anything multimedia is always better done on a Mac. As for incompatibilities maybe you should research the Linux Standard Base (LSB). As far as your comment regarding the Commodore and the Altair Microsoft did little for either platform. Do you even know how the Altair worked? MS wrote BASIC for the thing. Also I give credit to Compaq who reverse engineered the IBM-BIOS. Bill Gates has a selective memory. Everyone was already doing this stuff or getting ready to when he asked "wouldn't it be neat to...?" Someone just said "yeah" so he takes the credit now. Now let's talk about the companies that sued Microsoft. So you think it's ok for Microsoft to license Java for Windows and make it in compatible completely violating the license agreement? So much for the company that loves to rant about how we should adhere to licenses. Yeah theirs. Last but not leasat MS releases on average about 15-20 patches per month. You may think your only downloading 3 (consisting of 20MB) but you''re wrong. Upon closer examination we find those are only categories. Click Show Details to find that each one contains at least 3 patches. Let's not forget how vague, misidentified, and innacurrate the latest bulletins have been. Not to mentio their numerous grammatical and spelling errors. Tehy seem to point to patches that because Ms can't or won't identify the problem don't do shit. This month alone Windows has seen more than 30 patches for recent versions of Winblows. XP more stable and secure my ass.

	i cannot express how right u are (none / 0) (#157)
	by Cyrus on Sun Jun 2nd, 2002 at 07:51:49 PM PST

	true, true Linux and Unix are way more stable than windows will ever be! This has been Cyrus.

	Where is RobotSlave when you need him? (4.33 / 3) (#20)
	by because it isnt on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 04:48:02 AM PST

	I look upon this comment by the so-called "mfk" with disgust. Look at it, people -- it is a glowing advertisment for copyright violation. Mr. MFK seems to believe he is above the law. He believes he can quote an entire article for his nefarious purposes. Mr. Virtual Mage's copyright have never been so wilfully violated. In times of peril like these, where an honest writer cannot take a walk on the internet without being brutally raped, where is our self-appointed guardian of copyrights? Where is my honourable man? Where is his shiny gun? That's right -- the spineless, craven coward has deserted us. He only wishes to toy with the young, defenseless kids who inadvertently break the law. He has no guts to stand up to the gangsters of the copyright world like "mfk". adequacy.org -- because it isn't

	Finally a real inteligent word ... (1.00 / 1) (#49)
	by Narcissus on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 10:05:24 PM PST

	TWAT .... I was waiting for someone to use beautifully colorful words such as this one since I started paying attention to adequacy. Hopefully posters will start using such coloquilisms as cooder or cunt also ... God bless if someone actually comes up with something better. -------------------------------- Ok, who picked the flower???

	That's fun (none / 0) (#191)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jun 4th, 2002 at 08:57:22 AM PST

	4096 is nice. I'm working on a 128KByte (1MBit) private key encryption standard for use with playstation memory carts.

	re: More liberalist tripe (none / 0) (#97)
	by jbryce on Sat Jun 1st, 2002 at 07:58:49 PM PST

	And heaven forbid the user should EASILY install the patch Installing patches in gnu/linux is incredibly easy. Open a terminal window, and type "apt get dist-upgrade" and it does it for you Much easier than windowsupdate.microsoft.com amd office.microsoft.com

	I apologize. (3.50 / 2) (#22)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 06:16:33 AM PST

	I am a staunch defender of intellectual property, but with the hackers' concept of stealing Intellectual Property at every opportunity they get, I cannot be expected to play fair against these evil hackers. As such, I felt it necessary to quote his entire article point-by-point for both clarity and effectiveness. There were simply too many points that could not be addressed without at least some quote. I am unsure of what constitutes fair use, but in the future, I will make an effort to respect another person's copyrights.

	I am sorry (1.00 / 1) (#28)
	by Anonymous Reader on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 09:09:01 AM PST

	But at adequacy.org there is no such thing as fair use. That is unless you lips are firmly planted on the asses of the editors.

	'I cannot be expected to play fair' (1.00 / 1) (#32)
	by because it isnt on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 10:44:34 AM PST

	Might I remind you that two Wrongs do not make a Right. `(although two Wrights made an aeroplane)` adequacy.org -- because it isn't

	Fear Not. (4.00 / 1) (#33)
	by RobotSlave on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 10:56:42 AM PST

	I have been doing field research in the deserts of western North America, and I expect to be closely engaged in that project for a while longer. Copyright enforcement at The Adequacy is now wholly in the hands of the Adequacy War Department, and I am sure the Department will do a fine job of quelling copyright violation once the reassignment is complete. © 2002, RobotSlave. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.

	You Sir are a twat (2.00 / 1) (#29)
	by PotatoError on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 09:10:31 AM PST

	"How about you post your credit card numbers and Social Security Number for all to see" Another example of how morons can't get the right end of the stick. "4096-bit encryption is considered military-grade for a REASON" Encryption isn't owned. I could encrypt something in 4096-bit if I really wanted to. And NOONE could decode it...not hackers and not US army...only me :) <<JUMP! POGO POGO POGO BOUNCE! POGO POGO POGO>>

	Ah, but... (3.00 / 1) (#38)
	by budlite on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 01:22:06 PM PST

	The poster is clearly part of a terrorist organization; he even clearly states that a hacker's goal is to drive stolid all-American companies out of business. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't every major company's goal to snag as great a market share as possible, with maybe the added bonus of driving their competitors into the ground?

	nonono... (2.00 / 1) (#40)
	by foon on Thu May 30th, 2002 at 02:12:18 PM PST

	but isn't every major company's goal to snag as great a market share as possible, with maybe the added bonus of driving their competitors into the ground? This is absolutely not true at all. A privately held company exists in order to make money for its owner. A publicly held corporation exists to increase shareholder value. The key is usually profit...of course, a business can increase its share price even if it is presently losing money, if there is a strong belief in the investment community that their business plan will result in profits in the future. But profitability is ultimately the key. Consider, for instance, one of the corporations currently a darling in the terrorist hacker software community, Apple. You might not know it, but Apple's absolute market share has absolutely imploded over the last the 10 years, and in fact its even lower now than it was when the corporation was seen as near death in 1997. Yet why is their stature so high? Even as their market share has declined, they have been able to cut costs and increase their profit margin from sales to their existing customer base. They have not driven their competition out of business, unless you mean the mac clone industry, most of which was small, had little financial viability, and was dependent on Apple for hardware and software in any case. If profitability can be increased by reducing the size of a business, or creating additional competition, or giving products away for free, a business will do that. If it can be increased by doing the opposite, they will do that, also.

	RE: liberalist tripe (none / 0) (#94)
	by Virtual Mage on Sat Jun 1st, 2002 at 07:35:51 PM PST

	Is 4096-bit what they are considering military standard now? Damn are they outdated.

	4096bit, bah! (none / 0) (#159)
	by Cyrus on Sun Jun 2nd, 2002 at 08:13:49 PM PST

	4096bit isnt even that great. i have files enrypted in 5024bit, does that make me better than the military? well, maybe in the technological know-how field. ;)

	exactly! (none / 0) (#160)
	by Cyrus on Sun Jun 2nd, 2002 at 08:18:37 PM PST

	anyone who thinks Linux is too 'hard' is just blinded because they wont take the time to learn, all they want to do is criticize it cuz they dont know how to use it. This has been Cyrus.

	Pimply ignorant teens? (none / 0) (#141)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sun Jun 2nd, 2002 at 03:14:24 PM PST

	Generalizations are not useful. I happen to have a bachelor's degree in psychology and am currently pursuing my masters. Oh, lest I forget, I'm 30 years old too. Granted, there are a lot of ignorant teens who call themselves 'hackers' out there (they are referred to by the mainstream hacking community as 'script kiddies')and open source software has had it's problems. But can you honestly say that Microsoft hasn't? Have you been living in a vacuum? Windows is stable? Get real. My biggest question is, "What are you so afraid of"? It sounds as though you seem terrified that a 16 year old might actually be smarter than his/her teacher. Ever listen to classical music? Mozart was just a pimply ignorant teen too, huh? Or is it that you're afraid a 16 year old might be more intelligent than you? Actually, it makes me mad that a 16 year old is teaching a class, not because I begrudge his/her ability. I tend to think more of why a school has to HAVE a teen teaching. My tax dollars hard at work. But I guess you're just too inadequate (gotta love the pun) to look beyond the fact that someone else is brighter than you. Suddain_mischiefe

	Eand wat af gindah deescreminayjin? (2.50 / 2) (#10)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 09:45:33 PM PST

	Eeya een Inglaind, uuev goh aye problim wat wif tie gindah deescreminaydjen -- deh ende-riprisindaychin av wimin en cimputeh sionciz. Deheu thenk te "Hacker Culture" kintrebuts te dis? Eh, Guvnah? Eh? --Ruprect

	A good movie on this topic (3.66 / 3) (#12)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed May 29th, 2002 at 10:14:20 PM PST

	I used to hold the opinion that hackers were violent terrorist sociopaths, but a couple of days ago I saw an entertaining and informative movie about the subject that cleared a lot of things up for me. Hackers is about a group of happy-go-lucky teenage computer hackers who uncover a conspiracy by a large company to dump oil in the sea and blame it on hackers. The computer hackers go after the would-be environmental terrorists and hack into their Gibson (a brand of mainframe computer) to stop them. While this is going on, the government and the big corporations have the police convinced the hackers are techno-terrorists, and our protagonists have to run from the cops. It really is quite a roller coaster of a ride! I have a few questions about the movie to ask: The hackers were often depicted riding skateboards and rollerblades on busy city streets. This is quite a dangerous activity. Do hackers wear protective equipment when skating? While hacking into the Gibson, the hackers were going after the 'colonel'. I've often heard a few of my computer expert friends talking of this 'colonel' and wondered about just who he was. Is he a friendly colonel? What is his job? The hackers also went to a lot of dance clubs were loud techno music was playing and drug use was no doubt going on. Do hackers worry about the dangers of filling their bodies with illegal drugs, or is this part of 'learning all you possibly can'? And finally a couple of questions to you, Virtual Mage. You mention that hackers blew the whistle on the Echelon program run by several intelligence agencies (NSA, GCSB, MIsomething). If this is true, when will they be tearing down the facilities at Waihopai etc? You state that hackers believe that information should be freely available, yet you acknowledge that you withhold information from the media and 'crackers'. Is this a contradiction? You state that big companies are evil, and yet a self-proclaimed hacker, Steve Wozniak founded such a company. Does he want to destroy his own creation? I hope you can take time out of your busy teaching schedule to answer a few of my questions.

	The problem here is... (4.00 / 1) (#55)
	by budlite on Fri May 31st, 2002 at 05:41:03 AM PST

	...the latter-day ambiguity of the word "hacker". On the one hand, we have the malicious teenagers who break other peoples' systems for fun. On the other, we have the meaning taken from the geek subculture, which means a much more benevolent person writing software and experimenting with their own computers for personal gain, and often the gain of the computing fraternity in general. I think Steve Wozniak most likely falls closer to the latter.

	so? (1.00 / 1) (#57)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri May 31st, 2002 at 06:10:10 AM PST

	how on earth does this refute the original comment?

	Wrong. (3.66 / 6) (#60)
	by RobotSlave on Fri May 31st, 2002 at 11:07:30 AM PST

	Your notion that the word "hacker" has only a "latter day" meaning of "criminal" is provably false. This lie has been so effectively spread by the likes of Eric Raymond through pseudo-authoritative organs like the "Jargon File" that many geeks now swallow the untruth whole, and take umbrage at anyone who challenges the myth. In April of 1983, when the press (specifically, The Wall Street Journal) first used the word "hacker" to refer to something other than an amateur golf enthusiast, the word was already being used within the "geek" or computer enthusiast "subculture," to refer to a person who habitually attempts to break computer security. Perhaps the greatest irony of this campaign by Raymond and others to rewrite history is that the other great Orwellian stab at nerd language control came from the same group, but employed a more effective tactic: nerds around the world now use the phrase "Open Source" rather than the not-quite-so-libertarian "Free Software." These machinations are quite obviously part of a political agenda, and those who insist on advancing the NewSpeak are playing into the hands of political manipulators. You have nothing to lose but your chains, nerd. © 2002, RobotSlave. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.

	I always wondered why... (3.33 / 3) (#68)
	by Anonymous Reader on Fri May 31st, 2002 at 08:02:37 PM PST

	...you never bother to present examples of anything beyond this Wall Street Journal. Even the negative use of the word. Perhaps you could provide us with information where it was first publicly used. Oh look a Wall Street Journal article about golf. So what? Etymological information regarding the word HACKER. These days, most people think of hackers as anti-social types who break into business phone lines, ATM machines, cable, and government computers. Hackers are the new hi-tech outlaws. Though the idea of hacker as outlaw has some truth, much of it is certainly hyperbole ($10,000 an hour?). The overuse and misuse of the word hacker has been chafing against me of late. I've always understood a more benign definition. Time for some schooling. According to Steven Levy's seminal 1984 book Hackers, the idea of a "hack" came from the M.I.T.'s Tech Model Railroad Club. In the late 1950s, the members of the club would use the term to denote any project that was undertaken just for the "wild pleasure taken in mere involvement." Those who took pride in building better connections between relays were called hackers. Wireheads that they were, it's no surprise that when a new mainframe computer, the TX-O arrived on campus, many from TMRC were instantly drawn to it. To most people then, computers were bulky unfriendly machines that took up entire rooms and crunched numbers for insurance companies or scientists. They had no relation to the public at large. To these hackers though, these computers presented a whole new realm of possibilities. In the ensuring decade, they prodded the TX-O, and, later, the PDP-6 to play chess, hum Bach, emulate ping pong, act as a adding machine, and play space war games. All these applications were called hacks. Such work was seen as frivolous. These programs were written for no other reason than to be simply to have them be admired and improved upon by other programmers. In hindsight, its obvious these hackers were radically rethinking the way computers could be used. But hacking provided an addictive high. As Levy writes, When you programmed a computer you had to be aware of where all the thousands of bits of information were going from one instruction to the next, and be able to predict--and exploit-- the effect of all that movement. When you had all that information glued to your cerebral being, it was almost as if your own mind had merged into the environment of the computer. Sometimes it took hours to build up to the point where your thoughts could contain that total picture, and when you did get to that point, it was such a shame to waste it that you tried to sustain it by marathon bursts. To better suit such cerebral thunder runs, these misplaced geniuses would slip into 32-hour days fueled by cokes and lemon jelly wedges. For a dedicated few, outside norms were considered irrelevant - fashion, college degrees, even personal hygiene. One particularly notorious hacker, Richard Greenblatt would get so caught up in projects that he'd neglect to bathe. As a result, whenever Greenblatt would rub his hands together over the keyboard, little chunks of dirt fell on the keys, called "blatties" by other annoyed users. Eventually a philosophy emerged from M.I.T. known as the Hacker Ethic. The one and all-holy central tenet was this: information should be free. Hackers believed in free information the way hippies believed in free love. And oddly enough, at the time, it made sense. The way information works is strange. Keep it for yourself, and no one else will expound upon it, use it, or employ it in their own designs. If it's obscure, it's worthless. But if you leave information for others to tinker with, say a program you wrote, it will take hold, become stronger, better, and, at least in some small way, add to the collective knowledge of humankind. This is why for years so much software was placed in the public domain. If anyone saw a way to improve, say Xmodem, a program for downloading, they were free to do so. Copyrighting a program was considered heresy. In those early years at M.I.T., programs were left around for others to tinker with, the creators admitting someone could easily improve upon their design. The idea made perfect sense in the collegial atmosphere of M.I.T.. Outside the campus, however, this ethic has since caused headaches for companies, such as Bell Atlantic, that don't particularly appreciate people taking a curiosity in how their systems work, having them improved upon, or having it hacked for free phone calls. The hubbub you hear these days is sound of the Hacker Ethic rubbing against corporate propriety. As maligned as the word means, its easy to forget how valuable hacking is. It has made the Internet largely what is today: People doing stuff with no promise of financial gain, but simply because it would be interesting to do it. The word has been tagged with an unfair rap. I just hope curiosity and inventiveness won't be taken out with it. --Detikon

	Do you feel more relaxed now? (3.50 / 2) (#81)
	by RobotSlave on Sat Jun 1st, 2002 at 02:00:54 PM PST

	Perhaps you'd like a cigarette? That was the biggest fucking wank I've read in ages. Listen up, shithead. The cited article in the Wall Street Journal wasn't about golf. It was about computer criminals. And it was one of the first uses of the word with respect to computers in the press. There may be a couple earlier references, and there are certainly plenty of later ones. At that time, the word "hacker" was universally used to denote computer criminals, not just in the press, but amongst computer enthusiasts. This is the point. "Hacker," at that time, is what a geek called a computer criminal. It did not acquire this meaning at the hands of "the media." You want citations? Spend five minutes with Lexis/Nexus, and you'll find hundreds, you pathetic, bleating, little shit. The question, in the face of this overwhelming evidence, is how computer enthusiasts came to refer to the criminal element in their midst as "hackers" in the years between the construction of the first general computing machines and the introduction of the personal computer, and the concomitant dawning of public awareness of computer crime, in the early eighties. There is, I think, only one plausible answer. I've typed it up at length, so that even pissy little revisionist historians like you will have a shot at understanding it. Do you have any notion of what the word "etymology" means? Did you notice that in all of your tedious burbling about the early-computing mythos that we have all read about hundreds of times, you never told us why amateur technologists started referring to each other as "hackers?" Hmm? I know the answer to that, too. Are you ready to examine the stories you've been parroting, Detikon? Do you think you can handle the truth? It's coming, ready or not. © 2002, RobotSlave. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.

	Etymology? (1.00 / 1) (#82)
	by tkatchev on Sat Jun 1st, 2002 at 02:23:00 PM PST

	Is that the study of insects, by any chance? -- Peace and much love...

	Almost. (4.25 / 4) (#83)
	by RobotSlave on Sat Jun 1st, 2002 at 02:56:39 PM PST

	I believe you're thinking of entomology, the study of buggery. © 2002, RobotSlave. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.