Re: <nettime> digital hooliganism

[alex <alex@slab.org>]

hi pit,

thanks for your reply - hope you don't mind my cc:ing this back to
nettime

On Sun, 2002-03-17 at 00:15, Pit Schultz wrote:
> yes, thanks to mention. i guess i was aware of this. but the
> 'true' hackers as in 'where wizards stay up late' or
> as in 'linux kernel hackers' do not have control over the
> terminology any more. for example the hacker groups (like ccc
> in germany) tried to establish the term 'crackers' instead.
> but crackers are already defined as people who 'crack' software,
> eg. write 'cracks'.

if you are aware of the issues involved, i am disappointed that you didn't
refer or reflect on them.

'hacker' is not such a descriptive word, it refers to cultures with
tendencies, not a specific past-time.  so context becomes very important
when you talk about hackers.

but i think you get this context wrong.  here you seem suggest that ccc is
a good hacker group, yet didn't they run the hacking techniques workshop
that you attack in your post?  and my 'forkbomb.pl' stript, how is that
useful to script kiddies?  it's a _taming_ of an extremely well known
technique.

> my question wasn't so much, who is the 'owner' of the term, or what
> did it mean in the first place, but how is it widly understood or
> possibly misunderstood.

i didn't see such a question in your post.

> i didn't want to discredit the 'good, old' hackers at all, and i
> think many of them would agree because they also know about
> how much efforts it needs to keep getting systems secure against
> all kinds of attacks and exploits.

it's actually a lot easier than you suggest.  close off all un-necessary
ports, upgrade to ssh2, monitor activity.  if you have a decent backup
policy (which you should have anyway to protect against hardware failure),
then you limit any possible danger.  if you host net.art projects and
don't have backups, then that is plain irresponsible.

alex





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