From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Fri Sep 19 2003 - 23:30:57 PDT
>Its just sometimes people get crackers and hackers confused.
That's because there is no one, official set of definitions. And I for
one have never seen your definitions used as you described them. The
SOBs that hack into a system and cause mischief call themselves "Hackers"
(or some such immature nonsense as h@kErZ), so I think many would
disagree with your definitions including the punks who fit the description.
My own definitions are "Hacker" is someone who "hacks" into computer
systems, generally over the Internet, in order to snoop, destroy, copy,
or otherwise be somewhere and do something that they are not supposed to
be doing. These people are all criminals unless they are engaged in
legal activities (i.e. court sanctioned snooping and corporate security
tester for client systems ONLY). A "Cracker" is someone who "cracks" a
software product's security defences in order to prepare it for illegal
distribution. These guys are all criminals as well, unless they are
testing the defences of the product for legitimate reasons (i.e.
accademics or corporate security R&D). A WAREZ retard could be someone
with either of these two skills, but often is just a lameo who makes
software available for illegal sale or free distribution. They are all
criminals without any exception. Often an individual is all three and
generally called a Hacker. I prefer to call them other things,
especially when I see 5 years of my life's work without its security
coding and available for free download. Criminal is the nicest
description I use.
Steve
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