Wednesday, December 16, 2009

WHO ARE HACKERS?

The 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 motto is to help protect you from the worst of them.

 Anarchist Hackers :


These are the individuals who you should be weary of.  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. These individuals are usually high school students.

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.  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.”

For real hackers, the higher the security the better the challenge.  The better the challenge the better they need to be.  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.


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...”

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