jdl@pro-nbs.cts.com (Jennifer Lafferty) (06/20/91)
I'm kind of lost here. Exactly what is "phreaking" and "hacking" as you are using the terms. I'm a computer novice who barely managed to plug in the modem and figure out the communication program! Thanks, Jennifer [Moderator's Note: A 'phreak' is someone who likes to rip off the telephone company by finding devious ways to place calls and circumvent the billing. They also like to burrow around inside telephone company switching equipment looking for things to amuse themselves with. They typically take words which begin with the letter /f/, as in freak, file, and fool, and swap the /f/ for /ph/. A 'hacker' used to be a person who was knowledgeable about computers and wrote programs for them. A 'hacker' was usually a very smart computer person, and generally honest. Beginning a few years ago, the media started identifying phreaks who use computers connected to phone lines as 'hackers' (we prefer to call them 'crackers') and the term stuck. So in common parlance -- unfortunatly, and I use it myself sometimes -- 'hacker' has come to mean a Bad Person Who Phools Around With Computers, ripping off accounts, disrupting the network, etc. Many 'hackers' (crackers) are also phreaks, and vice-versa. Is that all clear now? Try and remember, the correct term for the bad guys is 'cracker' -- not 'hacker'. PAT]