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I think that the title of that post does not do justice to the interview. Old-skool vs New School is a tiny part of an interview representative of the psycholog
by gsivil 16y ago
I think that the title of that post does not do justice to the interview. Old-skool vs New School is a tiny part of an interview representative of the psychology of a virus writer. Virus writing seems like the most brilliant way to kill your creativity. Or in other words making your creativity a slave of the most boring of all arts: destruction.
- tricky 16y agoI've always thought for some people, destruction is a form of self-expression. Sometimes it is the only way they know how to create.
- adimitrov 16y agoWell, you can destroy something blandly, or you can destroy it in an intricate, even intelligent fashion. Just as you can create something blandly — to just barely serve its purpose. See, destruction is also creation. She creates viruses. These things then go on to destroy other stuff. Destruction is not at all a boring art. It's as legitimate an art as creation. Somewhere around 10th grade I finally gave in to my urge to put a lot of energy behind a simple question: why do parasites exist? Why are there lice, ticks, bacteria and viruses? Turns out they do, just because they do. They're legitimate 'creations,' living beings. And in non-parasitic beings, they inspire toughness and survival strategies — if it can't adapt to the parasite (in one way or another) it'll die out. Really, I don't get why people are biased against 'evil' black hats. If they target you and your app failed, you better get some security going. It's better some 'artist' who just feels the need to destroy intricate systems in an ingenuous fashion makes me aware of my security holes than someone with a malicious intent. From the interview, I can't see anything sociopathic or even malevolent in her (granted, I haven't read the whole thing.)
- gsivil 16y agoThanks for sharing another point of view. The destructive force of kids, and their love to create traps and make pranks is something that I really like. The life of non-human parasites or microbes is at least amazing, I am with you in that. My point was that destruction is the most obvious form of expression, for these reason we see it every time in kids. Personally I find it boring(since it is obvious and in a sense natural)- I can not change that. Of course somebody could tell me how come I do not complain about people that make sophisticated weapons for example. This is a whole different discussion.
- adimitrov 16y agoI'm with you when you say that I find it more engaging now to create useful stuff, or generally beneficial stuff. But when I was a teenager, it was quite different. I admired black hats, and people who wrote viruses, because they were playing a game: there were people whose sole existence was based on working against these 'bad guys.' They got paid to fix security holes, to design programs in an 'un-hackable' manner. And yet, the intruders often prevailed. It's a game of outsmarting. There's someone, incredibly smart, trying to prevent you from achieving goal x. He's getting paid, probably has a whole team of experts around him. And yet, you find your way into the system; break it. That sounded almost heroic to me. Of course, the whole metaphor works even better when you're discontent, or even at odds with society at large. Read: when you're pretty much every teenager on this planet :-D