Hacking - Right or wrong?

[Vauxchen]

As I'm sure most of you don't truely know what hacking I will try and explain as briefly as I can.

White hat hacking - "Hackers"
These are the programmers. They spend their time going through programs, editing them to make them better, then passing on the information. They are computer security checkers, and are "good hackers" in most peoples eyes.

Black hat hacking - "Crackers"
These are the common hackers that people think of. They break codes, and get data. They are the people who try and take your credit card numbers, personal information and other things that you don't want to know. These are the "evil hackers" the ones from the movie "Hackers".


Now that you have a small insight into hackers and crackers, what is your view on them?

Keep in mind that if you know how to crack a program, and bypass all the filters that computers have, you also know how to stop them. Therefore increasing your security. Is this right or wrong? and where do you draw the line?

 

[Devil Hunter 95]

i draw the line where bad hackers are involved

 

[-B.(o).C-®]

I think they win.

I used to do a little hacking myself back in my younger years at 4chan.org

 

[Dark Drakan]

All depends on what it is they are trying to achieve by hacking.

 

[Damien]

Well you cant just say what "hacking" is without knowing a hell of alot more than you just said , so i dont know , but if the "balck hat hackers" work for the goverment than thats fine

 

[Vauxchen]

Well you cant just say what "hacking" is without knowing a hell of alot more than you just said , so i dont know , but if the "balck hat hackers" work for the goverment than thats fine

I tried to give more information that what most people know. Ask my mum what a hacker is, and she would give the black hat description, so I tried my best.

You don't get black hat hackers with the government, I think that they become grey hat, or they become white. Not too sure though.

 

[Steve]

I know a guy who knows a guy who works as a software hacker. His job consists of finding security flaws in software and reporting 'em to the developers. Those lot are ruddy brilliant and I can't fault 'em. The prats who've hacked mine and Andy's websites over the years (only twice in, like, 5 years, to my knowledge) deserve a damn good slap though.

 

[Keaton]

I have full support for people whom like to make things better, ie. people whom help create the homebrew software for PSP and so on, it massivly expands the systems potencial and gets all your moneys worth out of it. As for the 'lookin' for CC details' hackers, pah, personally (as above) they need a slap, they could use their skills legitimatly and make more money ^^

 

[Angel]

*shudder* I thought I'd left all the black/white/grey/tinfoil hats behind when I stopped working in the SEO industry...

Anywho, my cousin - well, step-cousin or whatever - he works for Microsoft and his job is hacking all their security stuff to help them improve it - if it wasn't for people like him, we'd ne screwed every time a new Trojan, Worm or virus gets released across the net.

Hacking also helps people realise that their network is not as secure as they thought and give them the nudge required to improve their software or encryption. But the people who just down sites and think they're really smart ought to be shot - they're messing with people's livelihoods, after all.

 

[Vauxchen]

Is is okay for someone to hack your software, then leave a note saying "I know you are *name* and you live at *address*. This data will be delted now. This is how I got in. Fix it by doing this..."?
This is getting your details, but then telling you how to upgrade your system.

 

[Black Angel]

I hack allot.

Just an amateur now, but I love to hack games to have a little more fun. Make tanks fly, make pistols fire tank rounds, turrets fire rockets alter the physics so there is no gravity.^_^

As long as no one gets hurt(and no one gets too huge an advantage online) hacking is fine in my opinion.

I don't hack online games though, wish I could.