Hacker ................?

WHO ARE HACKERS?

 

I feel it is necessary to clarify the term hacker. Perhaps your

definition of a hacker has been influenced and tainted over the

years. There have been various computer related activities

attributed to the term “hacker”, but were greatly misunderstood.

Unfortunately for the people who are truly defined within the

underground tech world as a “hacker” this is an insult to them.

There are various types of “hackers”, each with their own

agenda. My goal is to help protect you from the worst of them.

 

Anarchist Hackers

These are the individuals who you should be weary of. Their sole

intent on system infiltration is to cause damage or use

information to create havoc. They are primarily the individuals

who are responsible for the majority of system attacks against

home users. They are more likely to be interested in what lies on

another person’s machine for example yours.

Mostly you’ll find that these individuals have slightly above

computer skill level and consider themselves hackers. They

glorify themselves on the accomplishments of others. Their idea

of classing themselves as a hacker is that of acquire programs

and utilities readily available on the net, use these programs with

no real knowledge of how these applications work and if they

manage to “break” into someone’s system class themselves as a

hacker. These individuals are called “Kiddie Hackers.”

They use these programs given to them in a malicious fashion on

anyone they can infect. They have no real purpose to what they

are doing except the fact of saying “Yeah! I broke into <insert

name here> computer!” It gives them bragging rights to their

friends.

If there is any damage to occur in a system being broken into

these individuals will accomplish it.

These individuals are usually high school students. They brag

about their accomplishments to their friends and try to build an

image of being hackers.

 

Hackers

A hacker by definition believes in access to free information.

They are usually very intelligent people who could care very little

about what you have on your system. Their thrill comes from

system infiltration for information reasons. Hackers unlike

“crackers and anarchist” know being able to break system

security doesn’t make you a hacker any more than adding 2+2

makes you a mathematician. Unfortunately, many journalists

and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker.” They

have attributed any computer related illegal activities to the term

“hacker.”

Real hackers target mainly government institution. They believe

important information can be found within government

institutions. To them the risk is worth it. The higher the security

the better the challenge. The better the challenge the better they

need to be. Who’s the best keyboard cowboy? So to speak!

These individuals come in a variety of age classes. They range

from High School students to University Grads. They are quite

adept at programming and are smart enough to stay out of the

spotlight.

They don’t particularly care about bragging about their

accomplishments as it exposes them to suspicion. They prefer to

work from behind the scenes and preserve their anonymity.

Not all hackers are loners, often you’ll find they have a very tight

circle of associates, but still there is a level of anonymity between

them. An associate of mine once said to me “if they say they are

a hacker, then they’re not!”

 

Crackers

For definition purposes I have included this term. This is

primarily the term given to individuals who are skilled at the art

of bypassing software copyright protection. They are usually

highly skilled in programming languages.

They are often confused with Hackers. As you can see they are

similar in their agenda. They both fight security of some kind,

but they are completely different “animals.”

Being able to attribute your attacks to the right type of attacker is

very important. By identifying your attacker to be either an

Anarchist Hacker or a Hacker you get a better idea of what you’re

up against.

“Know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be

victorious...”