Today's Hackers





	By P. Abrantes AKA Ghost_Rider ghostrider@box.net



	o Intro - Letter style .............................. 1

	o Media - how they report/expose the computer world . 2

	o Hackers' of today ................................. 3

	o Ending ............................................ 4





o 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

  



o 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.



o 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.





o Ending

 Summing up all the things I've said , and that some might say that it's

just bullshit, the press should see the computer world in a different

way, and inform themselves before writing articles about it, since a

misuse of terms might create a distortion of what really happens. Also

what we today call hackers, should show more heart and passion in what they

are doing, there's no point on defacing pages, or DoS'ing thousands of

hosts all over the Internet. If they actually like computers, drop the

instant program and get their sweated fingers in the source code.

 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