Back in time: Today's Hackers

Back in time: Today's Hackers

You might not know but some years ago I used to write some tutorials and opinion articles. Long before the concept of blog generalise all over the internet. Mostly regarding linux configuration, programming and networking I wrote a small text called Today's Hackers for an ezine called Blackbox (now dead I think).

Anyway I felt like posting this in here because I was talking about it and realised that the way it was written it's still current and I guess it always will be.

The following text was written in 2002 and I'm posting the original version without modifications.

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

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.

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 script kiddies 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.

Ending

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

Any thoughts on this?