Hacking culture

Hackers and Culture? True Indeed!

Hacker culture has existed for many decades, although the majority of us may have become recently aware thanks to movies like The Matrix. Nevertheless, hacking culture has been out there, and has been constantly influencing our society and the way we view the world. From anime to computer knowledge, hacker culture has, steadily, made its way to our lives.

What Is Hacker Culture?

Hacker culture is composed by all those experiences and human manifestations that are related to the exploit of hardware and software. Right now there are three kinds of hackers. The first and most known kind of hacker is the black hat hacker, or the individual who uses his knowledge for obtaining a personal benefit. Usually, it means stealing information that can be sold in the black market.

The most daring black hat hackers are able to crack bank accounts, leaving no trace behind. Fortunately, bank security and worldwide cooperation has been able to place some restrictions and control over these individuals.

On the other side of the balance is the white hack hacker, a computer security expert who works with organizations and helps them with their computer network security problems.

Finally, there are the grey hat hackers. This kind of hackers is composed by people who walk the thin line between white hat hackers and black hat hackers. Usually, their tendency will be influenced by their need of money or their lust for recognition among the hacker community.

Which Are The Origins Of Hacker Culture?

It could be said that hackers have existed since immemorial times. Although the Merriam-Webster dictionary portrays a hacker as a computer expert, in reality, a hacker is any person who looks for weaknesses in the system and tries to exploit them in their own benefit.

Under this definition, Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, was a hacker. How so? He noticed that there were a series of weaknesses in the armies of ancient Greece. In order to exploit them in his favor, he decided to implement a series of improvements to his own army. As history has showed us, these improvements worked in his favor and in favor of his famous son.

The same could be said from Napoleon, who noticed that mobility and artillery could be used in such a way that no army in Europe would be able to withstand him. Unfortunately for him, he forgot to consider that logistics were an important thing to consider when he mobilized hundreds of thousands of men into the Russian Empire.

Black Hat

in contrast, the black hat hacker is considered a criminal and uses his/her skills to break the law

White Hat

considered one of nice guys, a white hat hacker is one who hacks and the informs the owner of the hacking

Hacking run

essentially, a hacking run is a hacking session that lasts longer than normal working times, i.e. a hacking run that lasts for in excess of eight to ten hours.

Nuts and Bolts

To know what is computer hacking, one must know their terms. A list of certain significant ones is described below.

Black hat or White hat! Computer Hacking Explained

A Brief History

One might not suspect that the art, or scourge, of computer hacking was created at one of the havens for technological excellence.

True, at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), a group of students developed the technique and borrowed their name from the "hackers" of the late 1800s who found amusement in pranking the emerging telephone companies.Getting their laughs and skills from hacking and cracking into primitive computers and exploiting the Arpanet (predecessor to the internet), they created a novelty that would become the target of federal crackdown in years to come. To define hacking in short, we can say that an artistic criminal offense of breaking into another remote system without the owner's consent for the purpose of stealing information is what is hacking.

However, the act of hacking started out innocently, and was basically a method of trying to figure out how computer systems worked. The 1970s saw the rise in "phreaking," or phone hacking, headed by John Draper. This method allowed the user of a "blue box,", when used with a Captain Crunch whistle of 2600 hertz which accessed the AT&T long distance system, to make free long distance calls. Hackers initiated with accessing the free phone calls through a varied range of sources, thereby managing to circumvent into the nation's radio system and the phoning system resulting in a tremendous phone fraud nationwide.

After the age of "phreaking," computers became not only the target, but also the forum, for a growing hacker population to communicate. The creation of bulletin board systems (BBS) allowed this communication and the technological possibility of more serious government and credit card hacking became possible. At this time in the early 80's, hacking groups such as the Legion of Doom began to emerge in the United States, giving organization, and thus more power to hackers across the country.

Once this happened, breaking into the computers became a legitimate activity, with its own groups and soon its own voice with the 2600 magazine, launched in 1984. The effects of computer hacking were serious. Two years later, inevitably, Congress launched the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that outlawed hacking. Over the years, there was a series of noticeable occurrences as the worst consequential effect of computer hacking on more high profile cases, such as the Morris Worm, responsible for infecting government and university systems, and the Mitnick case in 1995, which captured Kevin Mitnick, steeling as many as 20000 credit card numbers.

In 1999, security software became widely known by the public, and with the release of new Windows programs, which were littered with security weaknesses, they became successful because of necessity. This fraudulent act of computer hacking is perhaps the major problem, confronting the rapidly expanding population of Internet users today, with the systems still trying to battle online hackers.

What Is The Hackers Bible?

The hacker's bible has two possible sources, depending on whom do you ask. For some people, it is none other but the magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. This magazine was created by Emmanuel Goldstein, and it focuses on aspects of different technologies. For example, it covers telecommunication devices as well as computers.

The magazine gives to its readers grey hacker's material. That means that it gives them information on how to augment the capacities of any electronic apparatus, such as a cell phone. This neutral posture is different to white hacking (were a hacker uses his abilities for a good cause, like detecting the vulnerabilities of a network) and black hacking (were a hacker uses his knowledge for selfish purposes, like creating a hotmail hacking guide).

The other Hacker's Bible is the Jargon File. This document is a glossary of hacker slang that has been collected since 1975, from the old days of the Arpanet (the precursor of the Internet).

Where Can You Get Material on Hacking and Information on Hacking

There are two main sources. The first one is the Internet. You will have to make a basic query in your favorite search engine with the word hacker and start looking each one of the suggested sites. Most of them will only offer you limited tutorials on how to hack (like the Hacker's Black book or the Happy Hacker book, which are outdated). Other's will give you an useful insight on this world. After some time, you will find forums were people from around the world share their experiences.

Do not expect to enter an easy world. The jargon used by a group of hackers can be quite confusing for any beginner. So don't feel that you will never be part of it. Start with the basics and read "How to become a hacker" from Eric S. Rymond. Although the document is five years old, it will give you an introductory crash course on were do you need to start.

The second source is face to face reunions. Get into the internet and search for any hacker's meeting in your vicinity. You will be surprised to find that they meet quite regularly. Of course, do not expect to find a Matrix kind of reunion. This is serious, professional people that pay their rent by hacking. Drop by and make some questions on hacking tutorials.

Hacking Simplified - For Those Who Want to Learn Things From the Scratch

It's quite probable that you have received spam offering a hotmail hacking guide that will give you the basics on how to become a hacker. Although it sounds tempting to have the power to know the private life of other persons, most of these guides and courses are nothing but scams that are looking for new victims.

If you really want to become a hacker, you need to go to the places were they gather: a hacking facebook, a hacker's forum, free hacking tutorials or even a mailing list. The information is out there. You only need to go and find it.