What is hacking?

[quantum]

Here are some simple questions.

What is hacking anyway? Are the hackers good guys or bad guys? Why hack anyaway? What are the satisfactions of hacking? What is hacker ethics?

Can anyone please explain in his own language without too many reference to external links? I would like to hear some original thoughts.
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[dinangkur]

Thank you Quantum for asking the question, I will try my best to explain without putting any external links or any references. Though I feel like, I should feel the beginning with a little bit boring story. But again I thought how many of us know it, specially the BD programmers. I’m not poking anybody with this issue, so do not spawn any flame war.

History of the word “Hack”:

The word came from the Hackney area of London, where horses were raised in middle age. According to oxford dictionary “hackney carriage” means – a word, used for official language of taxi, in the past hackney carriages were carriages pulled by horses that were used as taxis and then to anyone who hires himself out to do mean or servile jobs. In Shakespeare times “hack” and “hackney” were synonyms for “prostitute”. Then it was applied to any incompetent work, as in a hack job.

At the beginning of Computer era and the word “Hack”:

Among ham radio fans in the 1950s, hacking meant creatively tinkering to improve performance. It was a term borrowed from Anglo-American riding culture, where "hacking" meant riding about informally, to no particular purpose. The term “hack” came to refer to any clever prank perpetrated by MIT students; the perpetrator is a “hacker”. To this day the terms hack and hacker are used in that way at MIT, without necessarily referring to computers. When MIT students surreptitiously put a police car atop the dome on MIT's Building 10, that was a hack, and the students involved were therefore hackers.

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy

According to Levy members of an MIT model railroad club--a group of brilliant budding electrical engineers and computer innovators--from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s. These eccentric characters used the term "hack" to describe a clever way of improving the electronic system that ran their massive railroad. And as they started designing clever ways to improve computer systems, "hack" moved over with them. These maverick characters were often fanatics who did not always restrict themselves to the letter of the law and who devoted themselves to what became known as "The Hacker Ethic."

Current time and the word “Hacker”

A hacker is anyone who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations, primarily in their fields of interest, namely Programming or electrical engineering. But people started to use the word massively in different fields too.

According to encyclopedia-

The term hacker has six meanings that are in common usage:

1.Someone who knows a (sometimes specified) set of programming interfaces well enough to write novel and useful software without conscious thought on a good day.

2.Someone who (usually illegally) attempts to break into or otherwise subvert the security of aProgram, system network, sometimes with malicious intent. This usage was annoying to some in the developer community who grew up with the primary meaning in sense (1), and preferred to keep it that way; they preferred the media used the term cracker. However this wound up causing even more problems as simply creating a new word did nothing to dispel misconceptions. "Black hat hacker" is a phrase that wound up with the same problems as the word "cracker".

3.Someone who gains access to systems and networks, and makes small and harmless changes. This type of vandalism is usually done for amusement or recognition. These type of hackers are called "gray hat hackers" or sometimes just "grays".

4.Someone who attempts to break into systems or networks in order to help the owners of the system by making them aware of security flaws in it. This is referred to by some as a "white hat hacker" or sneaker. Many of these people are employed by computer security companies, and are doing something completely legal; and many were formerly hackers within sense 2.

5.Someone who, through either knowledge or trial and error, makes a modification to an existing piece of software, made available to the hacker community, such that it provides a change of functionality. Such change is normally a benefit. Rather than a competition, the exchange of improvements is most often experienced as a cooperative learning effort.

6.A Reality Hacker or Urban Spelunker (origin: MIT); someone who enjoys exploring air ducts, rooftops, shafts and other hidden aspects of urban life, sometimes including pulling elaborate pranks for the enjoyment and entertainment of the community.

Again at the end of everything, hacker meaning end up with the person, who is explaining the meaning. To me, I stick with (1) definination. We human beings are really starving for recognition among other people, society, country. There are different ways to do that and for IT people hacking is just a way to invent new technologies, ideas and system. So, they can get recognition and be part of greater things as there were people in past.

How to become a hacker, just learn and learn, may be one day some one will say to you – you’re a hacker. Then you’re hacker. Most intersting part is that you can’t call yourself hacker. Other will say "S/he can really hack," it's in the same appreciative tone that a jazz musician uses when s/he says, "S/he can really blow.

Happy Hacking.

-DK.
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...we too are stardust...

[quantum]

Hmm...I don't mind the history lesson. lol.

The idea of black, gray, and white hat hackers is really interesting. Most people who knows nothing about computers, associate hackers with an author of malicious code. This is very naive.

A hacker can be someone who does good by modifying a program to make it more effective and useful takes the program beyond what it was originally intended for!

I wonder how many understands this beyond the stereotyping!

Here is something I read somewhere else and I liked:

Quote:

Just because someone breaks a network, does not make them "bad"; just because someone writes some useful code, does not make them "good". There is such a thing as 'ethical hacking', or 'ethical cracking' if you are a hard liner. If someone finds a hole, then writes an exploit for that hole, does that make him or her inherently evil? Or should the company which released the software despite previous knowledge of said bug, liable? If it had not been for the hackers so often condemned by society, we would not have the level of security we now possess. The statement might be proposed, "well if there were no hackers, we would not require security." Yeah, right. People are naturally curious; hackers are just better at satisfying that curiosity. Now, that having been said there are times when hacking is plain wrong. Whacking my customer database so you can steal numbers for credit cards is reprehensible. However, as a professional, not protecting my network is also reprehensible; maybe more-so. It's a test of who's kung foo is better.

Maybe a good read would be the original "Hacker's Manifesto", from Phrack, circa 1986.

[http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/media112/hacker.htm.]

Dk,

How about an illustrated example of white hat hacking?
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Dust fills my eyes / Clouds roll by / and I roll with them / Centuries cry / Orders fly / and I fall again
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[dude]

So hackers are good people? Someone who uses hacking technique to break into a bank database is good person too? Is he not a hacker too?

[quantum]

Dude,

Those kind of Hackers are not really hackers. They are called crackers.

Hackers are the good guys. Crackers are the bad guys. I know DK is very busy with his final exam. When he gets done with that in 2 weeks, he can explain the difference very eloquently.
_________________

Dust fills my eyes / Clouds roll by / and I roll with them / Centuries cry / Orders fly / and I fall again
Afford best design, implement best solution. Outsource your web design.

[dude]

hmm...like mastermind is a cracker and DK is a hacker!

[Guest]

Hi dude,

I actually defined the word hacker and it's impact on IT world. I also said who is white hat hacker and who is black hat hacker(cracker). But again there is no divine line for it. Soldier kills other in the line of duty, we say it's war, not murder. Again, when he kills not in a battle field, it's a murder. Strange isn't it? So, you've to have your logics to support your works as part of good deed, then you're white. What demon does is "white" to it, to us it's black.

-DK.