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H4ck3rs are people too: Film review |
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Source: Network World - Posted by Alex
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My friend and colleague Alan Freedman, author of the distinguished Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, defines hacker as follows in Version 22.4:
"Hacker: A person who writes programs in assembly language or in system-level languages, such as C. The term often refers to any programmer, but its true meaning is someone with a strong technical background who is "hacking away" at the bits and bytes.
Hackers have a bad name
During the 1990s, the term "hacker" became synonymous with "cracker," which is a person who performs some form of computer sabotage. The association is understandable. In order to be an effective cracker, you had to be a good hacker, thus the terms got intertwined, and hacker won out in the popular press. However, sometimes, hackers are not even worthy of the original meaning of the term. Today, a lot of malicious acts are performed by people with limited knowledge who gain unauthorized entrance into computers to steal data or perform mischief (see script kiddie)."
"HACKERS ARE PEOPLE TOO," a 2008 documentary directed by Ashley Schwartau and produced by Winn Schwartau, is a refreshing look at intelligent, healthy, original people who are far from the twisted misfits portrayed in the notorious 1992 propaganda film "Unauthorized Access" by Annaliza Savage. It's a counterblow against the unfortunate hijacking of the term "hacker" by an uninformed press over the last 30 years. Steven Levy tried his best to fight the misuse of the term in his entertaining and informative book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Penguin, Updated edition, Jan. 2, 2001; ISBN 978-0141000510; AMAZON).
Read this full article at Network World
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