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Welcome to Hype, where you can read about all the lies concerning computer crimes
and how the media has tried to portray 'HaQuErZ.'
Hackers yearn for knowledge, and possess a limitless curiosity for the internal works of a system. They usually have extensive knowledge in one or more programming languages. They do NOT purposefully damage or delete files. Crackers are people that intent to delete and tamper with files on a computer, and theu use special tools to aid them.Their knowledge on the system is usually fairly low. You've probably seen them. They're cocky kids who think they know everything and are the greatest hackers ever because they have two thousand viruses on disk and took down the whole school system. They are crackers, and they are media food. The media freely substitutes the term hacker and cracker, ignorantly thinking they are the same words. And anyone who breaks into a system is automatically made an evil scumbag who deleted millions of dollars worth of information, put several people out of work, and posed a threat to national security. The media loves to blow things out of proportion since that makes for interesting news. A headline like, "Hacker Discovers New Flaw In SMTP Daemon, Programmers Working On a Patch" simply does not cut it. Instead, they give the public lines such as "Another teenage delinquent has hacked into a system, damages estimated at $(insert any large 6 digit number)" Since the public wants dirt, the media stretches things to fill their appetites. But how do they make up the numbers- the money "lost", the damages? It's not too difficult to play with figures. It's difficult to put a price on information. So a common practice is to add up the total expense of the system's security features and their implimentation, the administrator's salary, the amount of processing time used,and whatever else they think of. Essentially, their logic is that since the system has been hacked, it's been damaged. So they can go on and tack on the hardware cost, the price of the software on it, the money they paid to hire someone to teach morons how to use it, the delivery bill, the pizza and beer consumed during installation, etc, etc. That just about fills the dollar quota necessary to generate hype. Then again, they might just lie. Who's going to check? You think the media is going to investigate and find out it's less of a story than it really was? Wake up. More proof of the naivete surfaces each day. A question- if you steal a pen,are you prosecuted for the millions of dollars Bic spent on R & D,machinery cost, raw material cost, and worker's salary? Discovering a hole in software and utilizing it to reach secure areas of a system is NOT damage. The bug was already there- it's somewhat of an undocumented feature. A true hacker finds a way to enter, and then leaves, alerting the administrator of the security flaw. That's all. Locking up accounts, destroying system files, wiping hard drives...those are unethical practices and not the way of a hacker. There was a thing in the papers about Pentagon computer security a year back, reporting that it has been hacked thousands of times through the internet, and that hackers pose a danger to the national security. In fact, it mentions that weapons systems could be controlled. The media goes nuts, the people's hatred grows. If people would only stop and think, maybe they'd utilize something gathering dust in the back of their head: common sense. National weapons systems connected to an internet linked system? Nuh uh. Thousands of hacks? While recent attacks on government sites have proven that they aren't as secure as one might think, citing numbers that high obviously is an attention-getting stretch. Fact is, the American people are being fed lies so that their hatred of anyone with more than a modicum of computer knowledge grows. These people are the same that are brainwashed into thinking that internet censorship is a good thing. We know better, but who will listen to us? We're just those "damn hackers, always deleting files and causing havoc". Hacker Vs. Cracker An example of some of the email I recieve: Please email me a copy of AOHell and all the password crackers that you can get your hands on. I need to use them to hack into government systems to alter files saying that I am powerful and have a lot of money. Thanks, (Lame handle here) Someone's watched "The Net" one too many times... You're not gonna be able to break into important government computers with AOHell and a password cracker. I'm sorry, its just not possible. Your probably would not be able to hack into a government computer if you were a real hacker. Hackers don't use special tools to equip them on their runs, that would be unethical. Ethics, you say? Yes, you low down dirty crack into computers and mess up the files and brag about it but dont even use your real name jerk, hackers have ethics. Here's an example of them:
Sound corny? I dont care. If you want to break into a system with intentions to mess with stuff, you're not a hacker. You're a cracker. You're the kind of person that give us a bad name. You're the kind of person that make newbies think that hacking is all about getting rich off of embezzlement from banks. You're the kind of person that downloads warez off the internet, posts a web page with some links to a files, and proudly dons the title "3l33t hax0r." You're the kind of person that uses a credit card number generator to call 1-900 numbers and thinks you're some master phreak. You're a wannabe. And you're media food. |
© 1998 Acid_burn