Who is a Hacker?
A hacker is a person who breaks into computers and computer networks, either for profit or motivated by the challenge. The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground but is now an open community. The word 'hacker' originated in the computer labs of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1950s amongst a group of programmers who believed that all information should be free and that access to computers should be unlimited and total. Hackers now define themselves as an expert or enthusiast of any kind. Equally important, though, is the hacker's attitude. Computer programming must be a hobby, something done for fun, not out of a sense of duty or for the money. It is okay to make money, but that can't be the reason for hacking.
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.
The Hacker Ethic
Hacker ethic is the generic phrase which describes the values and philosophy that are standard in the hacker community. The term 'hacker ethic' is attributed to journalist Steven Levy as described in his book titled ‘Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution’, written in 1984. According to Pekka Himanen, a philosopher and public intellectual, it is a recent trend in business philosophy that values creativity, openness, and passion. In his book he explains this new approach to work and contrasts it to other work ethics.
The guidelines of the hacker ethic make it easy to see how computers have evolved into the personal devices we know and rely upon today. The key points within this ethic are access, free information, and improvement to quality of life. While some tenets of hacker ethic were described in other texts like Computer Lib/Dream Machines by Theodor Nelson, Levy appears to have been the first to document and historicize both the philosophy and the founders of the philosophy. The Hacker Ethic was a new way of life, with a philosophy, an ethic and a dream. However, the elements of the Hacker Ethic were not openly debated and discussed; rather they were accepted and silently agreed upon.
According to Andrew Ross, the hacker ethic, which has remained the preserve of youth culture for the most part, asserts the basic right of users to free access to all information. He demonstrates the metaphorical conflation of hackers with the computer viruses they write and with ‘foreign invaders’ of the national body. Difference between computer and biological viruses is intentionality.
Ethical hacking vs. Non-Ethical hacking
Ethical hacking, often performed by white hats or skilled computer experts, is the use of programming skills to determine vulnerabilities in computer systems. While the non-ethical hacker or black hat exploits these vulnerabilities for mischief, personal gain or other reasons, the ethical hacker evaluates them, points them out, and may suggest changes to systems that make them less likely to be penetrated by black hats. White hats can work in a variety of ways. Many companies utilize ethical hacking services from consultants or full-time employees to keep their systems and information as secure as possible.
The work of ethical hacking is still considered hacking because it uses knowledge of computer systems in an attempt to in some way penetrate them or crash them. This work is ethical because it is performed to increase the safety of the computer systems. It’s reasoned that if a white hat can somehow break the security protocols of a system, so can a black hat. Thus, the goal of ethical hacking is to determine how to break in or create mischief with the present programs running, but only at the request of the company that owns the system and specifically to prevent others from attacking it.
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