4 ms·

I suggest that figuring out how to use PS3s as a supercomputer would be a great hack whether it subverted sony's business or not. There's nothing shameful in b

by user24 16y ago

I suggest that figuring out how to use PS3s as a supercomputer would be a great hack whether it subverted sony's business or not. There's nothing shameful in being associated with Wozniak or Draper or any of the great technological innovators. There is something shameful in being associated with the "l33t h4x0r kr3w" (or Iranian Cyber Army) and those who participate in mass defacements etc. edit: Also, I really don't like the idea that you're pushing, that you have to work 'outside the system' in order to be a hacker. I completely agree that important attributes of being a hacker are the ability to see problems from non-traditional viewpoints, to come up with unusual solutions, to challenge the de rigeur way of doing things, to disrupt. And those attributes are shared by many subversives. But the important difference to me is that a hacker is constructively subversive.

raganwald 16y ago
Compare to Sales. There are slimy people who sell products that don't work. There are great salespeople who transform businesses and people's lives for the better. I'm sure lots of salespeople cringe at the thought of being associated with the slimeballs. But yet... It's all Sales and they are all salespeople. EDIT: By all means call yourself "constructive." But it is not a requirement of hacking. How was stealing telecommunications services constructive for the telecommunications companies?
- user24 16y ago
  maybe they need to reclaim the word Salesperson from the slimeballs then ;)
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Yes please! I suggest that the net harm to society from slimeball salespeople outweighs the net harm to society from black hat hackers by so many orders of magnitude that a comparison involves astronomical entities like red giants being compared to planetoids. I would ask you to think about the computer business if we could remove the enterprise salespeople, but my mouth is watering so much that I can't finish typing my comment...
- user24 16y ago
  This is worrying then. That's a good argument, that phreaking wasn't constructive. I once started making a Lego robot that could play my gameboy. That's not constructive at all either. But I'd like both of those to be great examples of hacking. Is the important distinction motivation then? That phreaks weren't motivated by an urge to crash the system but by an undying curiosity about how things work?
  - raganwald 16y ago
    In the 1970s there were these hackers and they did certain things we admire today. I only fear that we will put them on a pedestal and say that that was hacking but what kids do today is not hacking. That's a little like saying that Jazz died with Miles Davis and that we should call it "African-American Classical Music" and when kids do something offensive today like slapping a saxophone reed or a tuba mouthpiece with their tongues (James Carter and John Sass, respectively), it's not Jazz, it's noise. I just don't trust myself to know how to say that subverting the telephone system by emulating tones is hacking but routing 15% of the world's IP traffic through your computers for military purposes is not hacking. I can only say that I admire the first and deplore the second. p.s. And yeah, Go Go Lego! I suggest there's an "air" of subversion involved with hacking, but just a whiff. If it makes you happy, Hack On!
- fractallyte 16y ago
  I wonder if 'lawyer' will ever be (re)claimed...
frb 16y ago
> There is something shameful in being associated with the "l33t h4x0r kr3w" (or Iranian Cyber Army) and those who participate in mass defacements etc. I think one problem is that there's no other word to describe such people. The media associates any computer related crime to hacking. Last week the guy who broke into Sarah Palins email account, in the media known as the 'Palin Hacker', was sentenced to jail. Is this guy a hacker? If not, what should he be called instead? In this context, this article is interesting: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/palin-hacker-de/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/palin-hacker-de/
- user24 16y ago
  "Cracker" is preferred, but it will take a long time for the media to get that.
  - astine 16y ago
    Make that never. 'Cracker' sounds stupid and already has racist connotations. Personally, I'd like to call people who illegally subvert computers for financial gain or ego-tripping, 'criminals' and be done with it.
  - devmonk 16y ago
    I always thought a cracker (beyond the food and ethnic slur definitions) was someone who removed copy protection from software. So, in WarGames, David would have been considered a hacker, but the guys you see in the splash screens of shared old computer games were crackers. Even if that isn't the formal definition, my guess is that is the most common connotation associated with that definition of cracker.

by user24 16y ago

raganwald 16y ago

Compare to Sales. There are slimy people who sell products that don't work. There are great salespeople who transform businesses and people's lives for the better. I'm sure lots of salespeople cringe at the thought of being associated with the slimeballs. But yet... It's all Sales and they are all salespeople. EDIT: By all means call yourself "constructive." But it is not a requirement of hacking. How was stealing telecommunications services constructive for the telecommunications companies?

user24 16y ago
maybe they need to reclaim the word Salesperson from the slimeballs then ;)
- raganwald 16y ago
  Yes please! I suggest that the net harm to society from slimeball salespeople outweighs the net harm to society from black hat hackers by so many orders of magnitude that a comparison involves astronomical entities like red giants being compared to planetoids. I would ask you to think about the computer business if we could remove the enterprise salespeople, but my mouth is watering so much that I can't finish typing my comment...
user24 16y ago
This is worrying then. That's a good argument, that phreaking wasn't constructive. I once started making a Lego robot that could play my gameboy. That's not constructive at all either. But I'd like both of those to be great examples of hacking. Is the important distinction motivation then? That phreaks weren't motivated by an urge to crash the system but by an undying curiosity about how things work?
- raganwald 16y ago
  In the 1970s there were these hackers and they did certain things we admire today. I only fear that we will put them on a pedestal and say that that was hacking but what kids do today is not hacking. That's a little like saying that Jazz died with Miles Davis and that we should call it "African-American Classical Music" and when kids do something offensive today like slapping a saxophone reed or a tuba mouthpiece with their tongues (James Carter and John Sass, respectively), it's not Jazz, it's noise. I just don't trust myself to know how to say that subverting the telephone system by emulating tones is hacking but routing 15% of the world's IP traffic through your computers for military purposes is not hacking. I can only say that I admire the first and deplore the second. p.s. And yeah, Go Go Lego! I suggest there's an "air" of subversion involved with hacking, but just a whiff. If it makes you happy, Hack On!
fractallyte 16y ago
I wonder if 'lawyer' will ever be (re)claimed...

frb 16y ago

> There is something shameful in being associated with the "l33t h4x0r kr3w" (or Iranian Cyber Army) and those who participate in mass defacements etc. I think one problem is that there's no other word to describe such people. The media associates any computer related crime to hacking. Last week the guy who broke into Sarah Palins email account, in the media known as the 'Palin Hacker', was sentenced to jail. Is this guy a hacker? If not, what should he be called instead? In this context, this article is interesting: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/palin-hacker-de/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/palin-hacker-de/

user24 16y ago
"Cracker" is preferred, but it will take a long time for the media to get that.
- astine 16y ago
  Make that never. 'Cracker' sounds stupid and already has racist connotations. Personally, I'd like to call people who illegally subvert computers for financial gain or ego-tripping, 'criminals' and be done with it.
- devmonk 16y ago
  I always thought a cracker (beyond the food and ethnic slur definitions) was someone who removed copy protection from software. So, in WarGames, David would have been considered a hacker, but the guys you see in the splash screens of shared old computer games were crackers. Even if that isn't the formal definition, my guess is that is the most common connotation associated with that definition of cracker.