Late-R wrote:
>
> The reference to a "Cracker" getting access to your Mac is the wrong
> terminology. A "Hacker" is the person trying to gain access to a system. A
i believe cracker generally also refers to uninvited intruders (basically, any illegit
"hacking"), where as their is perfectly legit hacking going on, i.e. the clever hack
of the apple cd rom driver to work with most drives, which is not illegal. or for
instance if someone figured out how to make their video card do a resolution it wasn't
intended to do, that would be a legal hack.
there's also perfectly legit work relating to breaking encryption algorithms or
finding their weaknesses, which is a bit different than when the nsa or someone else
tries to open your pgp encoded email.
there are certainly all levels of skill involved in all of these activities, and they
tend to require the same skills to some extent, you really can't generalize completely
about what programming language one or the other might favor. in any case, they need
knowledge of the system they want to enhance or break, whatever that system is, and
whether it's "legal" or not.
> Certainly a [k]racker would never want to gain access to your system. Hacking
> and Cracking are two different forms of study.
on the contrary, systems with software installed are a fine target for stealing
registration codes or getting more samples to aid in reverse engineering the copy
protection. also, any one that's good at one type of hacking is likely good at other
forms or at least interested in them. it's all about solving problems without allot
of documentation, whether the goal is good or bad or legal or illegal (and it always
depends on the point of view involved).
> You have to sit back and think "Why would someone actually Hack into my system?"
> unless you were a high-profile attack. Nobody is going to risk jail time doing
> something that doesn't have the right amount of risk involved, even the guy
> starting out. Also, turn off File Sharing and your Mac is basically impenetrable
> especially on a dial-up connection. It takes a LOT of talent to gain access to a
> dial-up system and a LOT of stupidity on the system owners side. And those
> people don't want to gain access to your systems to begin with.
you obviously haven't been in high school for a while. before they fully understand
the penalty and reward matrix people do allot of stupid things, and that includes some
people in their 30's and beyond, and people who just don't care. there are plenty of
people out there with axes to grind and nothing to lose, or just with nothing to lose
and a great deal of boredom coupled with some skill and access to a computer (and you
can easily find a dandy computer in the trash these days).
>
> As for the term "Script Kiddies"... These are people who actually enjoy the
> Trojan or Virus field of study. There are even more and more of these around now
no, i think the term is specifically meant to apply to those who download and use
other peoples programs that demonstrate exploits, but have little or no knowledge of
how the code works or how to modify it in an intelligent way. for instance, there is
code floating around out there that will let any fool try and set up a denial of
service attack, and you don't even have to understand why those attacks work to run it.
certainly there are a great many people who study all of these things, for every
possible motivation. what's unfortunate is much of what is totally legitimate and not
a real threat to any one is becoming more and more illegal everyday.
--
The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government,
one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which
historically has proved to be always possible." --Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. Here it
comes again
<http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc042702.html><http://www.counterpunch.org/oden1.html>
--
SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and...
Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives |
Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! |
Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html>
SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml>
--> AOL users, remove "mailto:";
Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/>
Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
