“…who finds soul in the machine…”
…"trapped" in a quest for control and mastery with the computer as their medium…
“…who have found within the computer a world which they can mould to their desires, a world far less threatening and more rewarding to them than the world of conventional social relations…”
In hacker definition controversy, the term hacker is reclaimed by computer programmers who argue that someone breaking into computers is better called cracker, not making a difference between computer criminals ("black hats") and computer security experts ("white hats"). Some white hat hackers claim that they also deserve the title hacker, and that only black hats should be called crackers.
“The term was developed on the basis of a practical joke and feeling of excitement because the team member would “hack away” at the keyboard hours at a time.”
The combination of motives to seize the system for oneself, to appropriate its power without its permission, to experience a feeling of technically-induced ecstasy, and yet to wish to improve the system and thereby gain its acknowledgment and approval--was common among this curious subculture- hackers.
Their objective, therefore, was not merely to win access to immensely valuable centralised computer systems for themselves, but to make them available to a wider public who were being kept away from them by corporate greed and government power-grabbing.
Hacker ethic is the generic phrase which describes the values and philosophy that are standard in the hacker community. The Hacker Ethic was a “new way of life, with a philosophy, an ethic and a dream”. The general principles of hacker ethic include:
- Sharing
- Openness
- Decentralization
- Free access to computers
- World Improvement
Noticeably missing from this ethic is respect for personal property, security, and privacy. Hackers let no one and no thing come between them and their pursuit of computing. This leads to conflict between those who follow the hacker ethic and the larger community of users.
A hacker gains status by demonstrating mastery of the system. This was traditionally done by writing clever programs ("hacks") but there is a growing temptation to attract attention by penetrating ("cracking") a system's security, crashing it, infecting it with a computer virus, or accessing supposedly secure information.
Municipal Election - Ontario 2006
Sometimes hacking is done for financial gain, sometimes for political purposes to advance some cause, and sometimes it is done just for good 'ol fashioned mudslinging in a local circumstance.
Toronto Star reporters Peter Edwards and Richard Brennan wrote a story October 24th saying that "York Region police Chief Arnand La Barge is recommending an outside police force investigate how leaked emails were left on the doorstep of Vaughan Mayor Michael Di Biase".
Apparently in the municipal election there is a tough contest between the incumbent mayor, Michael DiBiase and challenger Linda Jackson. It is suggested by journalists Edwards and Brennan that someone hacked the computer of Councillor Linda Jackson and printed out emails between her and a York Region police officer. It is suggested that these emails contain private personal communication between Jackson and this police officer. Someone appears to be trying to give Mayor Di Biase an advantage by providing him with lurid details about some activity being done by his competitor. Jackson went on record as saying "it's an inside job" which suggests that sometimes external controls and carefully monitored security cannot be effective if it is undermined by people that have internal access to a network.
According to Pfaffenberger, Technology leads a double life, one which conforms to the intentions of designers and interests of power and another which contradicts them — proceeding behind the backs of their architects to yield unintended consequences and unintended possibilities… technologies rarely fulfil the fantasies of their creators.
But, as Pfaffenberger points out, hackers’ ‘outlaw’ or ‘electronic terrorist’ status may be overdrawn; hackers are often hired by the very companies they have sought to electronically break into; many if not most of them are already on a university-paved road to computer science success (though this ethnic and gender profile is slowly changing, along with the penalties for hacking).
MANEKA
BT09B009
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