Hackers... for fun or not

[chenko]

Do you people think that more hackers (the "bad" un's) do it for fun, or for other obscure reasons?

[Guv]

They are the Nerd equivalent of sociopaths.

There are people who torment animals, beat up on women, vandalize property, become serial killers, or less predatory criminals. There are all sorts of disturbed personalities with no respect for the property or well being of others.

The hacker is one of the above. Those who pirate software are petty thieves. Those that obtain and use credit card data are criminals. Those that spread viruses are like the teenagers who vandalize property and psycopaths who hurt/kill people and animals. These people are the scum of the computer community.

The only ones I would have any respect for are ones who cause problems for politicians or the IRS, who deserve to be harassed whenever possible.

[HarryW]

Well so long as they don't mess up anything that matters to me, it doesn't particularly bother me. Not that there's much that I consider worth keeping on my computer; what I get from my computer is now in my head mostly. Given the choice, I'd rather they stayed out.

I dunno, for fun I guess. For 'the rush'? Feeling of power? Seems a bit like competitive sport to me, only more in the mind and in a lot of cases more destructive.

[SteveCRM]

What really bothers me is the amount of people that 'want' to learn to hack. They think its some glorious task of taking down national banks, and getting millions of dollars without consiquence. But a hacker is only a person that will try to get around security to gain information. But now all of these people only think of it as crashing systems. For instance, dennis got sub7ed a few days ago...whats the point???? Especially the people who make the dumb programs. Why waist your time to create something that has no meaningful purpose other than randomly wrecking someones work. I went to a message board on discovery.com about hacking, and you wouldn't believe how many people had posts like: "Hey I want to learn to hack but don't know where to begin." and "If anyone knows how to hack email me...". If you aren't smart enough to figure it out, then you should learn a thing or two about computers first or you are going to get into serious trouble. Even 'taking' information is a crime. It is theft!!!! So why do these people still try? Its pointless.

[YoungBuck]

"If anyone knows how to hack email me..."

Doesn't that just seem like the stupidest thing to say to a hacker And I must agree that hacking seems like a total waste of time...... and talent!

Originally posted by YoungBuck


And I must agree that hacking seems like a total waste of time...... and talent!

Im a former hacker (non-malicious) and i use it at work to test there security, and yes they know, i always did wat i did for fun, somit which wud freak people into getin' better security and make them laugh, i didnt do viruses, i didnt do the goverment, and i didnt do harm...

Guv I think this is a little biased heh? have u been attacked or are you just one sided, a very small partion of hackers are serial killers etc. they spend more time at there pc's absorbing all infomation the can obtain to "get in"

I belive more lamers are round using simple "nuke" programs which are total annoying, the only time ive ever used one of them is to stop som1 accessing my pc and thats the only time i will, that will teach lamers hehe

I dont know about anyone else, but I can see people wanting to learn how to hack as some sort of security against hackers - a sort of know your enemy concept. Still, its not something you can wander around asking people about. To me, that seems as stupid as going up to a 6ft 6in skinhead and asking him how to rob a bank..!

[Ellie]

I personally would like to learn to hack purely so that I can use what I learn to protect myself from others. I have been the victim of a hacker, a few years back, before I worked in IT and whoever it was totally wiped my machine. I am still new to IT and find it worrying that people will cause so much damage to other peoples property with no thought to what they are destroying. At the time I was hacked I was a secondary school teacher and so it was bye-bye to all the work I had created, I was left with just paper copies to try to photocopy. Whoever wiped my machine didn't just make life hard for me - but for a lot of kids who deserved the best work I could produce.

just a small aside - when I was in school, computers were particularly rare. I remember in primary school, there was just 1 BBC model B for the whole school. Oh how things have changed.

I agree with you though ellie, forewarned is forearmed. anyone who can provide security advice in here is welcomed with open arms...

Originally posted by Ellie
I personally would like to learn to hack purely so that I can use what I learn to protect myself from others.

Exactly why i learnt, but i learnt from reading books and web pages... there is so much out there to help, so many lamers AAAKKKK get away, help me.... help.... help... HELP!!!!!!!!!! arrrggggghhhhhhh

Originally posted by Ellie
I agree Chenko, it is easy to find information for anything if you look. I would guess that the person asking people to e-mail hacking advice was just too lazy to do any research themselves! Do you still hack now or are you just using your knowledge for protection now?

i only hack for security now...

later
simon