86 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
86 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
HACKERS; VICTIMS OF MEDIA STEREOTYPE
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written by; Violent Work Of Art
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It seems like you're always hearing in the news about hackers¹ who are
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getting put in jail for "hacking" into websites, stealing vital
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information and unleashing harmful computer viruses. What the public
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doesn't know is, it's not hackers who are breaking into those sites,
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it's crackers²; a completely different thing! Crackers are the one's
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who are cracking into websites, crashing networks, infecting online
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users with viruses and simply causing mayhem! But the media has put a
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stereotype all over hacker name claiming that they're the one's to
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blame for all the damage done! What they dont know is, hackers are the
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one's who made the Internet and the World Wide Web! Hackers are the
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one's who are testing security, making fully functional OS's
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(operating systems) for the everyday computer user, making firewalls,
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anti-virus programs and other security related software. But with the
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stereotyping that the media has put all over the hacker name companies
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are shutting down hacking related sites, getting people fired from
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their jobs because they're suspected of being a hacker and simply
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giving hackers a bad name. For example, I submitted a shorter version
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of this article to the website Adequacy (http://www.adequacy.org), but
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with their poor excuse of humor this is the response that I got
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(my Adequacy user name was "shadowfox"):
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---
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"Dear shadowfox,
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We at Adequacy.org were offended by your recent submission entitled
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"Hackers; Victims of media stereotype." While we do not deny that many
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web site defacements and information thefts are the work of Caucasians,
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we find your unfounded assertion that all such attacks are performed
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by whites to be extremely distasteful. This was only compounded by
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your use of the ethnic slur "cracker."
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Please take your hatred of persons of European extraction elsewhere.
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We will not be publishing racist statements.
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Yours,
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Peter Johnson
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Senior Editor, Adequacy.org"
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---
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They knew perfectly well what I meant by the term cracker, they just
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want to assure that hackers will become nothing more than a memory.
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It's websites like this that are giving hackers a bad name. If only
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the media and the public could see the truth behind all this, they
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would truly know that hackers are the people trying to protect online
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users, such as yourself, from the evil intentions of crackers! But
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until the media sees that they're wrong, hackers may never get the
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praise that they so rightfully deserve. If we dont do something about
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this now hackers may become a figment of the past. Then who will
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protect you from the malicious crackers? Exactly....no one. So please
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do something now to ensure that hackers will always be here to keep
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the online world a better place, thank you.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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DEFINITIONS
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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¹HACKER;
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1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems
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and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who
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prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.
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2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys
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programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
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3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
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4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
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5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work
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using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'.
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(Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them
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congregate.)
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6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy
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hacker, for example.
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7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming
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or circumventing limitations.
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8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive
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information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network
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hacker'. The correct term for this sense is cracker².
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²CRACKER;
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One who breaks security on a system or program.
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All information was provided entirely by Violent Work Of Art
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Article copyright © of Violent Work Of Art 2002
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