The True Hacker: A Distortion of Reality
Uploaded by devicenull on Nov 16, 2001
Over the years, to this date, the media has distorted the definition of a hacker. It has been morphed and demonized to someone who terrorizes cyberspace. However, the true hacker is someone who seeks knowledge and information. When hackers hack into systems or networks, it is to explore an operating system that is foreign to them.
The younger generations have bred a new philosophy of hacking. Wannabe hackers who do not deserve the title “hacker” use simple utilities available over the Internet to hack into personal computers or banks and cause havoc. This is due because they have no respect for the unwritten hacker code and ethics. Those superficial hackers who use their knowledge to harm other operating systems or use their experience to gain material wealth have blemished the integrity of the hackers of the world.
A true hacker is not like your ordinary person. Hackers are distinctively different than your average and boring citizen. They do not settle for what the rest of the world is following or brainwashed into doing. Hackers thrive off curiosity, and have an unsatisfying hunger for knowledge. The word impossible or access denied does not exist in a hacker’s vocabulary. They can access anything and everything that is kept in a computer; particularly when a price has been placed on knowledge and information. Why should only a select few have leisure of knowing what the rest of the public does not? Knowledge is and should always remain free. A hacker will share his knowledge, encourage it to be reproduced and distributed.
Hacking is a skill that takes years and years and tons of practice to achieve. A hacker’s qualifications are based on qualifications and performance. Prejudice is non-existent, a person’s title such as degree or position means nothing over the Internet. Discrimination is impossible, hackers are judged on how much they achieved in the quest for knowledge.
Hackers have ethics, contrary to what the media has portrayed. Hackers do not plant viruses, (biggest myth) they do not steal. However certain hackers who misuse their abilities to steal are not classified as true hackers, because knowledge in itself is its own reward. Hackers do not cause corruption nor destroy systems or networks. A real hacker’s purpose is to explore foreign material. The most common cliché is “Using your knowledge to increase your knowledge.” But nowhere in the process is it said to gain material wealth...