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The number of comments in here slandering the developer’s morality for picking locks is actually pretty surprising for a site literally called Hacker News. Ever
by cush 9mo ago
The number of comments in here slandering the developer’s morality for picking locks is actually pretty surprising for a site literally called Hacker News. Every day there’s a story on the front page of some grey/white-hat showing off an exploit they found to infiltrate a site we all use. It’s an odd double standard.
- raincole 9mo ago> the number of comments Two of them in total, if I counted right.
- dormento 9mo agoStill astounding in a place where "hackers" congregate.
- stackghost 9mo agoThis place lost its hacker lustre at least 10 years ago. I registered my first account in 2011 or so and even then it had plenty of "pro-big corporate" energy here.
- daveguy 9mo agoIt's a site that was founded and run by venture capitalists. It always had "pro-big corporate" energy. If for nothing else, because that's one of the potential exit strategies.
- stackghost 9mo agoI know but there was a "hacker spirit" undercurrent that's been diminished of late, I feel
- hk__2 9mo agoMeh, when I registered in 2012 people were writing the same thing.
- figers 9mo agoIf it lost it 10 years ago... where's website that still has the hacker ethos?
- fragmede 9mo agoNot really. Two is not a large number of comments. Turn on showdead in your profile and see the dreck that most users never see.
- cush 9mo agoHar har. At the time I commented it was the top comments and a few replies
- keybored 9mo agoThe title of this website is literally in another sense than white/grey/black hacker.
- f1shy 9mo agoLockpicking can also be in that colors, AFAIK.
- Rebelgecko 9mo agoLock picking falls under jargon files definition of "hack" imo
- wat10000 9mo agoDefinition 7 from the Jargon File: "One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations."
- _0ffh 9mo agoI went to hacker events where someone would sell lock-picking tools and practice locks like it's the most natural thing in the world.
- keybored 9mo agoMr. judge I’m not a black hat hacker. I’m a person, one of such nature who enjoys creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. Pick a fight with a room full of pedants snicker snicker.
- ghurtado 9mo agoOriginally the word "hacker" made no distinction between the two meanings. This site is pretty old, so you're right, it was intended in the original "Kevin Mitnik" sense (the original hacker, who ironically would fall outside of the modern definition) The modern acception focused on online computer security came much later. That meaning is neither the one used in the name of this site nor the one that would be relevant to this conversation. To summarize: today's hackers are also yesterday's hackers, but yesterday's hackers may or may not be modern hackers.
- pixl97 9mo agoI mean, you tend to see this everywhere. Hopefully these people do realize that a lock is a promise saying "you belong to a society, be nice". They do very little beyond that, especially these days with small, powerful powertools.
- pipes 9mo agoI "belong" to a society? That suggests that a group owns me. Hrm I'm probably nit picking, but the idea of a society owning me isn't something I agree with. Also I'm free to leave.
- pixl97 9mo ago[flagged]
- pipes 9mo agoI'm not a libertarian, heck I even think property rights aren't a right, they are a service provided by the the state.
- pineaux 9mo agoall rights are provided by a state or hegemon. Some rights are harder to take away than others. Some are easier. the hegemon does not need to be defined.
- tacone 9mo ago> [Danger: Libertarian detected, rational communications may not work] The parity bit gets immediately unreliable.
- scubbo 9mo agoThis is linguistic nonsense on a par with disliking the phrase "my spouse" because it implies ownership. You can easily talk of "my country" or "my university" without claiming ownership, just as one can talk of "a sense of belonging" or of "belonging to a club" without feeling owned. Words have several meanings.
- charcircuit 9mo ago>Every day there’s a story on the front page of some grey/white-hat showing off an exploit they found to infiltrate a site we all use. This is not true.
- schmuckonwheels 9mo agoYou must be mistaken. This site stopped being Startup News just like Facebook became the 'metaverse' overnight.
- BrandoElFollito 9mo agoPicking locks is a tradition in hacking. So morality is already off the table. Except if this is to save a cat - the offical reason for lockpicking in the 90s. Now, the robot is hardly something you put together between dessert and coffee. Someone building this must have a live for hardware and lockpicking is just a pretext. And think about the cats!
- Alive-in-2025 9mo agoDoes anyone even know about the classic MIT Guide to Lockpicking? Back in the day, it was so entertaining to come across this while in grad school and enjoying reading it instead of working on actual work. We are made to be technical tinkerers, playing with tech, seeing if sending that input to that program will crash it. I see it not as a moral issue but as a technical skill, to understand how to work with systems, explore what doesn't work. That way you gain skills in how to make things work better.
- johnfn 9mo agoBut that isn't what "Hacker" means. Take it from pg, who named the site, 15 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648199 > In the sense of the word that means people who write code, not people who break into things
- russelg 9mo agoSure, but in this case they definitely are a hacker still since they did write code to achieve this.
- johnfn 9mo agoThe comment I am responding to says that people should be amenable to lockpicking because it’s “hacker” news. But he’s using the wrong meaning of hacker. So the argument doesn’t hold.
- idiotsecant 9mo agoCue an entire thread of people launching 'memberberry picking expeditions over a couple comments.