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PLEASE stop calling them hackers. They're DDoS kiddies who have now switched to spinning up TOR on their botnet. THESE ARE NOT HACKERS.
by tw04 12y ago
PLEASE stop calling them hackers. They're DDoS kiddies who have now switched to spinning up TOR on their botnet. THESE ARE NOT HACKERS.
- droopyEyelids 12y agoAt this point Hack is just a marketing/media term and Lisp nerds from MIT no longer have any say in the matter. Let it go.
- tw04 12y agoThat kind of attitude is why we have people denying global warming. Terms have meaning, allowing idiots to try to muddy the waters hurts all of mankind. It has nothing to do with "Lisp nerds from MIT".
- smtddr 12y agoThe whole argument of what "hacker" means in tech circles versus what it means to the mainstream is beyond a dead horse. That's like trying to make the word "gay" mean "happy" again.
- ddingus 12y agoIt still does mean happy! Nothing has changed there. We've just added homosexual to the list of things associated with the word "gay." When "gay" is used in the "happy" sense, context is what differentiates it from the more recent homosexual sense. "hacker" is no different. Really then, it's about more effective writing, insuring the context of "hacker" is clear from the surrounding context. What we lost in both instances was easy, utilitarian use of the word as more words are now required to convey information accurately.
- Aldo_MX 12y agoTo be honest, I never knew that "gay" meant "happy" until I watched The Three Caballeros in English
- ddingus 12y agoYou and a whole lot of other people, until they see something presenting it. I had to explain the shift to my kids once. It was sort of interesting after that time. We notice it, and they will often comment on something picking up a new meaning now. That suggests to me a lot of people remain unaware of "overloading" words in that way.
- balls187 12y ago> Lisp nerds from MIT I think this may be a slight on the this site being called "hacker news" and while PG is a "lisp nerd", he never attended MIT.
- droopyEyelids 12y agoIt's not a slight, I think lisp nerds at MIT were the very first people to use the word.
- pikzen 12y agoPlease understand the problem. Calling them "Hackers", or "Black hats" or whatever fucking term is NOT the issue. When someone has the possibility of doing a Sybil attack, no matter what they did before, you take that shit seriously. As of now, we don't know if the goal is to really test their 0day (which, if it's a Sybil isn't exactly 0day) or just popping up 3360 exit nodes to give "free" bandwidth.
- tw04 12y agoGiven that they've yet to do anything beyond DDoS attacks that aren't even complex in nature - the odds of them having a 0-day or any attack of any sort is pretty much 0. This is literally one or more teenagers "doing it for the lulz" and the attention.
- eropple 12y agoEnglish is not prescriptive. That will not change no matter how hard you rage.
- jnbiche 12y agoThe word "prescriptive" generally refers to an approach to language, such as found in grammars, discussed by grammarians, etc. Not to languages themselves, which are neither descriptive nor prescriptive.
- eropple 12y agoThere are very much prescriptive languages. French, for example, is prescriptively maintained by the Académie française and the Office québécois de la langue française. English isn't one, and all the hurfing and durfing in the world won't change that because a techie doesn't like the word "hacker" being used in a way despite his...wait for it...proscription.