7 ms·

If you want a job and a career these days, make or contribute to open source projects. The days of getting a career from unauthorized hacking into systems are

If you want a job and a career these days, make or contribute to open source projects. The days of getting a career from unauthorized hacking into systems are over. That road leads to prison/death, as it should.

lytedev 8y ago
What about bug bounty programs?
- matte_black 8y ago
  Intent matters. Hacking systems for the purpose of finding vulnerabilities to report is within the spirit of authorized edge cases.
- blackflame7000 8y ago
  It could be said that a non-zero percentage of bug bounty hackers are not actually white hats, but rather blackhats with poor connections or limited ability to fence their vulnerability.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Do you maybe want to rephrase that last sentence? It looks like you just said unauthorized hackers deserve to die.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mayankkaizen 8y ago
  I too was shocked. Then I thought may be I didn't get it because english isn't my first language.
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    Unfortunately, there is one otherwise-modern country with mostly native English speakers which retains the death penalty. The language was clear, its America that's at fault.
- matte_black 8y ago
  I actually thought about leaving out “as it should” when I wrote it. I knew that stating my opinion was going to be taken badly, but then I thought why censor myself? I should say what I mean and mean what I say. Unauthorized hackers are not good guys: The type of guys who break into systems for personal gain or satisfaction without permission. I know around here we tend to romanticize these people but let’s not forget they are still criminals. There should certainly be prison time if they are caught, don’t know how anyone could disagree with that. Death is debatable, but in some cases fully warranted.
  - alxlaz 8y ago
    It's not stating your opinion that's taken badly, it's your opinion that's taken badly. I think everyone in their right mind can agree that in most cases it's bad for society if you break into someone else's system. If you take it on a case-by-case basis, it's a little hard to make that statement. E.g. would it be bad if someone broke into a Chinese network and use the information to help/warn human rights activists? To break into a company that's conducting unauthorized experiments on unwilling or uninformed subjects and leak that to the press? It's easy to say that vigilante justice is never a good idea, but the victims who can't get any other kind of justice might very rightfully disagree. It's hard to even agree that it's always wrong to break into a computer system. To pronounce a minimum acceptable sentence of jailtime, and maybe even suggest that death penalty would be a good idea, too, is not something that's going to be taken well in the civilized world.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - codetrotter 8y ago
    > Death is debatable, but in some cases fully warranted. Myself and a lot of other people don’t believe in death sentence no matter the severity of the crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country The two main reasons why I don’t support a death sentence in any case are: 1. People sometimes get sentenced for crimes they did not commit. By at least letting them live in prison rather than killing them we give them a chance to fight the sentence. 2. The law is not objectively “correct” because there is no such thing as a single “true” morality. Multiple moral stances exist, and we should be somewhat tolerant of that. Amnesty International has some more arguments against death penalty as well. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ Finally I believe that the justice system should to the greatest extent possible exist to prevent crime and reform criminals so that they can be productive members of society, not primarily exist to punish criminals. In my country — Norway — this is reflected in how the police handle confrontational situations. The Norwegian police force always tries to deescalate, whereas in the US the police are very aggressive in a lot of situations that should not call for that sort of reaction. There are very many people that do bad things not because they are fundamentally bad people but because of their circumstances. Everyone deserves a chance. Some people cannot be helped and need to remain locked up because they pose a threat to the rest of society, but that should be what we do when we see that we cannot reform them, not how we treat everyone who breaks the current set of laws.
mayankkaizen 8y ago
> That road leads to prison/death, as it should. As it should? English isn't my first language and I really hope you aren't suggesting that the one who does unauthorized hacking should die.
- bartread 8y ago
  I'm not exactly sure but I think he's implying that hacking in this way is the early part of a journey that, if it escalates into a pattern of more damaging criminal behaviour, would ultimately end in either prison or death. Still, not a terribly empathetic attitude. EDIT: I assumed good faith, according to the Hacker News guidelines. Apparently in this case I was wrong. I just read the GP's second, more in-depth, comment further down: he's absolutely in favour of prison and thinks that in some cases death may be warranted.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    Hackernews is soft on hacking crimes and I’m not. It’s as simple as that.
    - mayankkaizen 8y ago
      I am not any kind of hacker or even a terrible programmer. Just a noob. I am mostly a lurker here. I am not influenced by HN. But I still don't understand how hacking is such a serious crime to be punished by death sentence. In fact, there are very very few crimes which deserve death penalty.
    - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
      There is a large gap between "we should be tougher on hacking crimes" and "hackers should be killed."
dang 8y ago
You created, and then fed, a huge pointless flamewar with this absurd bit about "death". That's trolling. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do it again on this site.

lytedev 8y ago

What about bug bounty programs?

matte_black 8y ago
Intent matters. Hacking systems for the purpose of finding vulnerabilities to report is within the spirit of authorized edge cases.
blackflame7000 8y ago
It could be said that a non-zero percentage of bug bounty hackers are not actually white hats, but rather blackhats with poor connections or limited ability to fence their vulnerability.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

Do you maybe want to rephrase that last sentence? It looks like you just said unauthorized hackers deserve to die.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mayankkaizen 8y ago
I too was shocked. Then I thought may be I didn't get it because english isn't my first language.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  Unfortunately, there is one otherwise-modern country with mostly native English speakers which retains the death penalty. The language was clear, its America that's at fault.
matte_black 8y ago
I actually thought about leaving out “as it should” when I wrote it. I knew that stating my opinion was going to be taken badly, but then I thought why censor myself? I should say what I mean and mean what I say. Unauthorized hackers are not good guys: The type of guys who break into systems for personal gain or satisfaction without permission. I know around here we tend to romanticize these people but let’s not forget they are still criminals. There should certainly be prison time if they are caught, don’t know how anyone could disagree with that. Death is debatable, but in some cases fully warranted.
- alxlaz 8y ago
  It's not stating your opinion that's taken badly, it's your opinion that's taken badly. I think everyone in their right mind can agree that in most cases it's bad for society if you break into someone else's system. If you take it on a case-by-case basis, it's a little hard to make that statement. E.g. would it be bad if someone broke into a Chinese network and use the information to help/warn human rights activists? To break into a company that's conducting unauthorized experiments on unwilling or uninformed subjects and leak that to the press? It's easy to say that vigilante justice is never a good idea, but the victims who can't get any other kind of justice might very rightfully disagree. It's hard to even agree that it's always wrong to break into a computer system. To pronounce a minimum acceptable sentence of jailtime, and maybe even suggest that death penalty would be a good idea, too, is not something that's going to be taken well in the civilized world.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- codetrotter 8y ago
  > Death is debatable, but in some cases fully warranted. Myself and a lot of other people don’t believe in death sentence no matter the severity of the crime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country The two main reasons why I don’t support a death sentence in any case are: 1. People sometimes get sentenced for crimes they did not commit. By at least letting them live in prison rather than killing them we give them a chance to fight the sentence. 2. The law is not objectively “correct” because there is no such thing as a single “true” morality. Multiple moral stances exist, and we should be somewhat tolerant of that. Amnesty International has some more arguments against death penalty as well. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/ Finally I believe that the justice system should to the greatest extent possible exist to prevent crime and reform criminals so that they can be productive members of society, not primarily exist to punish criminals. In my country — Norway — this is reflected in how the police handle confrontational situations. The Norwegian police force always tries to deescalate, whereas in the US the police are very aggressive in a lot of situations that should not call for that sort of reaction. There are very many people that do bad things not because they are fundamentally bad people but because of their circumstances. Everyone deserves a chance. Some people cannot be helped and need to remain locked up because they pose a threat to the rest of society, but that should be what we do when we see that we cannot reform them, not how we treat everyone who breaks the current set of laws.

mayankkaizen 8y ago

> That road leads to prison/death, as it should. As it should? English isn't my first language and I really hope you aren't suggesting that the one who does unauthorized hacking should die.

bartread 8y ago
I'm not exactly sure but I think he's implying that hacking in this way is the early part of a journey that, if it escalates into a pattern of more damaging criminal behaviour, would ultimately end in either prison or death. Still, not a terribly empathetic attitude. EDIT: I assumed good faith, according to the Hacker News guidelines. Apparently in this case I was wrong. I just read the GP's second, more in-depth, comment further down: he's absolutely in favour of prison and thinks that in some cases death may be warranted.
- matte_black 8y ago
  Hackernews is soft on hacking crimes and I’m not. It’s as simple as that.
  - mayankkaizen 8y ago
    I am not any kind of hacker or even a terrible programmer. Just a noob. I am mostly a lurker here. I am not influenced by HN. But I still don't understand how hacking is such a serious crime to be punished by death sentence. In fact, there are very very few crimes which deserve death penalty.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    There is a large gap between "we should be tougher on hacking crimes" and "hackers should be killed."

dang 8y ago

You created, and then fed, a huge pointless flamewar with this absurd bit about "death". That's trolling. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do it again on this site.