On Sun, 2009-06-21 at 18:40 +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote: > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Krishnakant<[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hacking as breaking into other's systems was bad and is still bad. > > Breaking into others systems is always bad but it is not hacking but > > "cracking". that is wy we all windows lovers will never buy a license > > and use a "crack". I never herd of a software hack. > > I read about serial numbers which are called cracks. > > A software hack is basically a shortcut of sorts in a program. It > generally involves making some assumptions about how the underlying > compiler/OS will execute your code or how the underlying library call > is implemented. The word is generally preceded by the words "elegant", > "clever" or "ugly", "quick" to signify whether the author thinks the > solution is exceptionally clever or exceptionally dirty. > > > The point here is that hacking was never bad and will be never bad. As > > I said it is a matter of last few years that hacking was *given* a bad > > name. Those who did it knew that hacking is a good thing and free > > Read this: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computing) > > to get a more balanced view about the word in computing terms. It has > always been fuzzy since phreakers and black hats also call themselves > hackers. People who are part of the Free software movement know and > understand what you mean when you say "happy hacking". Someone new to > this movement will not, and if he/she does not learn this from > context/reading he/she should be told what we mean when we say "hack". > > Also, if someone comes around here asking about "hacking sites", it is > not right to direct them to securityforums or something. I feel the > right thing would be to explain what hacking means when we mention it > and how it is different from the network security related stuff. > That's exactly what I attempted to do but alas ... Any ways, your point is right but there are some so called free software lovers (well most are "open source " freeks ) who themselves want to go with popular misconceptions and would even go to the extent of promoting the same for some or the other bennifit.
As I had explained in one of the earlier emails for the bennifit of new comers, hacking is the method of breaking down problems into understandable bits and then finding a clever solution for the problem. > > software community in particular respects its real meaning. So by > > giving a wrong and dirty meaning to that term itself will make these > > people look bad and unorganised. So who ever carries the tak is bad. > > So why should we coin a new term for some thing which already exists. > > > Are you suggesting that we except some wrong propaganda just because it > > is a popular misconception started by media and big businesses off late? > > It was not big businesses that claimed hacker == evil. It is just that > phreakers and black hats have always called themselves hackers all > along. The press simply tagged along. Business never cared until they > saw that their data was in danger from some miscreants who called > themselves "hackers". > There might be a further deep down history behind how the term got wrong meaning, but let's not get into that here. Any ways I think we can stop this arguement, the new comers have their own choices, our work is to tell them the truth. happy hacking. Krishnakant. -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
