"76012,300 Brad Hicks" <76012.300@compuserve.com> (06/20/91)
In TELECOM Digest vol 11, #471, jdl@pro-nbs.cts.com (Jennifer Lafferty) asked: > I'm kind of lost here. Exactly what is "phreaking" and "hacking" > as you are using the terms. This should make a LONG thread. Everybody has their own definitions. Pat Townson, the TELECOM moderator, chimed in with his own. If I may paraphrase in the interest of brevity, Pat sez that a phreaker is someone who likes to rip of the Phone Cops; a hacker, a bright computer programmer; and a cracker, someone who rips off computer users. If true, this leaves a gaping hole in the language: what do we call a bright phone system expert who isn't a bright computer programmer? That aside, let me chip in my own definitions, which hopefully will shed as much light as they will heat (grin): HACKER: (n) Derived from "to hack," a verb used at MIT for dozens of years now to mean "to throw something together quickly" with an alternate, but related meaning, "to prank." (In MIT usage, a great prank is still called a hack, whether or not it has anything to do with computers.) Computer hackers are people who live for their hobby/profession. What seperates a truly brilliant hacker from a truly brilliant programmer is that the hacker is only interested in results; s/he will achieve the impossible in record time but with code that cannot be maintained and no documentation. As one of Nancy Lebovitz's buttons says, "Real programmers don't document. If it was hard to write, it SHOULD be hard to understand." Or as we used to say at Taylor U., a hacker is someone who will sit at a computer terminal for two solid days, drinking gallons of caffeinated beverages and eating nothing but junk food out of vending machines, for no other reward than to hear another hacker say, "How did you get it to do THAT?" PHREAK: (n) Derived from the word "phone" and the Sixties usage, "freak," meaning someone who is very attached to, interested in, and/or experienced with something (e.g., "acid freak"). A "phone freak," or "phreak," is to the world-wide telephone system what a hacker is to computers: bright, not terribly disciplined, fanatically interested in all of the technical details, and (in many cases) prone to harmless but technically illegal pranks. CRACKER: (n) A hacker who specializes in entering systems against the owner and/or administrator's wishes. Used to be fairly common practice among hackers, but then, computing used to be WAY outside the price range of almost anybody and computers used to have lots of empty CPU cycles in the evenings. (There also used to be a lot fewer hackers; what is harmless when four or five people do it may become a social problem when four or five thousand do it.) Now hackers who don't illegally enter systems insist on a distinction between "hackers" and "crackers;" most so-called crackers do not, and just call themselves hackers. CRASHER: (n) Insult used by computer bulletin board system operators (sysops) to describe a cracker who enters for the malicious purpose of destroying the system or its contents. Used to be unheard of, but when I was last sysoping, was incredibly common. Crashers (who insist on calling themselves hackers) insist that this is because sysops are more obnoxious about asking for money and insisting on collecting legal names and addresses. CYBERPUNK: (n) A cyberpunk is to hackers/phreaks/crackers/crashers what a terrorist is to a serial killer; someone who insists that their crimes are in the public interest and for the common good, a computerized "freedom fighter" if you will. PROPOSITION FOR DEBATE: "It is immoral for anyone to do that which, if everybody did it, would destroy civilization." [I'll chip in with my position on that last part later, if others are interested enough to perpetuate the thread. Please send personal replies to jbhicks@mcimail.com, it's cheaper.]
ninjam@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (06/23/91)
This is responding to the person's question about what a Hacker and a
Phreaker is.
By the way, this is an UNBIASED opinion, unlike the Moderator's ...
A Phreak is not generally someone who rips off the phone company,
although it sometimes plays a small part. A true Phreak is someone
who is dedicated to learning about the phone system, including not
generally accessible proprietary information. As for the "Phreak" and
"c00l dudez" syndrome that the Moderator was talking about, he is
talking about a very small section of self-proclaimed Phreaks. These
are the new "code kids" that sit around and set up their computers to
"hack" long distance carriers. These are not true Phreaks.
Unfortunately, these are the people that the media usually presents to
us when they talk about Phreaking. In fact they are sometimes called
"hackers" (sic).
As for the definiton of a Hacker, yes, I agree with Pat, but I have to
strongly dissagree with his other points. A true "Hacker" is still,
and always will be someone knowledgeable about computers, and finds
them so interesting that they want to learn as much as possible.
You people write off an entire generation of Hackers as "crackers",
with out looking at everything. Most of the true Hackers out there
break in to these systems in the first place because they want to
learn about the particluar computer or network. They are driven on
for a need to learn.
I admit there are exceptions in today's generation of Hackers. Some
who do try to crash systems, and just trade "this new k-rad k00l
account I just got", with no intentions of trying to learn from the
system. But they are frowned upon by the rest of us. And again,
these are the ones that the media usually picks up on.
I have to strongly say that it is not right for people to write off
the entire 80's generation of Hackers, and the Phone Phreakers as
dishonest scum, or as the Moderator so kindly put it "the bad guys".
You can't write off a whole group of people as malicious because some
who are malicious do what they do. That's very unfair categorizing
and stereotyping.
Thanks for your time..
________________
|NM --- THFC|
----------------
[Moderator's Note: Thank you for clearing up my biased misconceptions
on the subject. PAT] Andy Sherman <andys@ulysses.att.com> (06/26/91)
In article <telecom11.483.5@eecs.nwu.edu>, ninjam@csd4.csd.uwm.edu writes: > By the way, this is an UNBIASED opinion, unlike the Moderator's ... One person's bias is another person's objectivity. Yours shows every bit as much Pat's. He, I think, would acknowledge his. > A Phreak is not generally someone who rips off the phone company, > although it sometimes plays a small part. A true Phreak is someone > who is dedicated to learning about the phone system, including not > generally accessible proprietary information. This isn't ripping somebody off? Proprietary information is intellecutal property owned by the companies that paid to invent or discover it. Using a computer to steal it is no different morally than breaking down my door and rifling my filing cabinet. Would your pursuit of knowledge justify *that* as well? > As for the definition of a Hacker, yes, I agree with Pat, but I have to > strongly dissagree with his other points. A true "Hacker" is still, > and always will be someone knowledgeable about computers, and finds > them so interesting that they want to learn as much as possible. > You people write off an entire generation of Hackers as "crackers", > with out looking at everything. Most of the true Hackers out there > break in to these systems in the first place because they want to > learn about the particluar computer or network. They are driven on > for a need to learn. The original use of term "hacker" had nothing to do with breaking into systems, it had to do with a do or die style of programming. While I have many disagreements in philosophy with the "last of the true hackers", Richard Stallman, to my knowledge he has *never* advocted liberating intellectual property by stealing it, either by cat burgling or computer cracking. I suspect that the recent changes in guest policy on the gnu.ai.mit.edu machines was a personal defeat for RMS, not because he believes in cracking but because he honestly believed that he could run his systems on the basis of trust. That he was so sadly mistaken, to the extent that the GNU project could not function for all the interference on their systems, is strong testimony to how wrong you are. You want an example of a true hacker, in the positive sense of the word, go look at Stallman's work. If you are hacking at a security hole on a system that you are authorized to use for the purpose of demonstrating the problem, that may be valid, *PROVIDED* you inform the administrator (using your real name and address) before, during, and after, and you don't use the illicitly gained privileges. That is true hacking. Anonymously breaking in and using the privleges is *THEFT*. What other crimes does your "need to learn" justify. Can you break into my house and go through my stuff out of a need to learn what's there? Can your need to learn about how the human body works justify murder and human experimentation? (Mengele comes to mind. He needed to learn.) Yes, I put extreme cases to make the point. But it's hard to turn a matter of degree into a moral distinction. George Bernard Shaw once asked a prominent society woman if she would consider sleeping with him for a million pounds. She said yes. He then asked if she would sleep with him that night for 25 pounds. She replied, rather huffily, "Of course not! What do you think I am?" Shaw replied, "Well madam, we've already established that. Now we're merely haggling over the price." > I have to strongly say that it is not right for people to write off > the entire 80's generation of Hackers, and the Phone Phreakers as > dishonest scum, or as the Moderator so kindly put it "the bad guys". > You can't write off a whole group of people as malicious because some > who are malicious do what they do. That's very unfair categorizing > and stereotyping. I don't care how pure you say your intent is. Theft is theft. If you can't do the time, don't to the crime. Whine elsewhere, please. > [Moderator's Note: Thank you for clearing up my biased misconceptions > on the subject. PAT] Snicker, snicker. Andy Sherman/AT&T Bell Laboratories/Murray Hill, NJ AUDIBLE: (908) 582-5928 READABLE: andys@ulysses.att.com or att!ulysses!andys What? Me speak for AT&T? You must be joking!
Scott Huehn <aj540@cleveland.freenet.edu> (06/30/91)
What most of you misunderstand is that hackers and phreakers are not united. Some of you believe that they all work together to cause havoc, and if you catch one of them, it will stop the rest. You are wrong. The 'Underworld' or 'Underground', so to speak, is in chaos. They are not one big group atempting to access everything under the sun. There is quite a bit of competition, and if you stop one person, it may be a rival of another, and in essence no big 'loss'. They work in a 'gang' such as you see on the street, except through computers. It may be interesting to watch, but the stakes are high; it is for publicity. Scott aj540@cleveland.freenet.edu - Internet