White/Black-hat?

[Grand_Master]

What I noticed from this site, we got two groups.
The "ethical hackers" and the wanna-be-crackers, right?

Why this extremism of opinions?

I myself are into both what you call hacking and cracking.
To crack you basically need to know hacking. The base of cracking and hacking are basically the same, general knowledge of computer systems.

In the digital world as well in life, nothing is white or black. It's gray.

What about ethical cracking??
I would DDOS the FRA if I had the time and knowledge to do this without getting caught. (For you who don't know, they've set up a surveilance system that renders them able to inspect every digital package that passes the Swedish borders, "to defend the country from outer threats" (Obviously a lie to take controll.))

What I'm trying to tell, is that all of you (who seems to not be able hack or crack). Think it through, once more. Hacking and cracking are two sides of the same coin. It's basically the same thing. And a "cracker" with some years of experiance, would never spread all those viruses. They would never crack a website, just to show that they can.

Now to the point: What I hate (and what I think most of us hate, most) are those wanna-bes and scriptkiddies out there. We have no actual reason to deem cracking, axcept for one case at a time.
One thing is sure, though. Making damage without a reason is pure stupidity. Else, cracking isn't nessecarily a bad thing.
And those who know the arts of hacking do posses the knowledge of cracking, and are probably somewhat crackers, too (at least most of them).

Am I totally wrong?

[canine]

The base of cracking and hacking are basically the same, general knowledge of computer systems.

Not quite, as cracking requires highly specialized knowledge, and such knowledge is mostly worthless unless you want to use it for malign purposes.

For example, I, and many others, have knowledge on how to reset any important system passwords on certain types of systems. It's not hard. But this technique requires time and physical access to the system. This makes it useless for cracker purposes. Any other ways that rely on software exploits or the like are useless legitimately. These pieces of knowledge aren't really useful outside of cracking.

There is no such thing as ethical cracking. Whether you disagree with what the FRA is doing, it's not your place to hassle them. It's just like a person who has horrible views that conflict with your own. They have a right to speak as they wish. You disagree with what they say, you can say as you wish as well. With the FRA, if you disagree with them, it's up to the people of Sweden, or their relevant jurisdiction, to fight it through legal means. Cracking their systems or DDoS's are horrible.

If a person is well versed in hacker knowledge, they most likely won't have any more than a cursory, non-specific knowledge of cracking. I can vaguely describe how cracker techniques work, but any specific implementation requires research and testing. You can theorize and work with cracking in an academic sense, but putting any of your results into practice in the wild is horribly inethical. Even if you're fighting something like the FRA.

[Grand_Master]

If you have knowledge of how an application/server/database/network/etc/etc,
work (hacking), you can without to big problems find the exploits and use those (cracking).

Different use of the same knowledge.

[canine]

It's not quite the same piece of info. I can know the general idea behind a buffer overrun or SQL injection, but to actually put it into practice requires more specific knowledge.

You can start with a book on a particular topic, networking or databases, for example. To write a legitimate program you must actually try and code it. You have to pore over documentation and assemble your program. However, that knowledge you have gained in the process is not suitable for cracking. It isn't even close. You need to proceed to attempt to crack and actually apply the concepts. A book will provide general information, but to actually have the required knowledge to crack, you must have experience. This experience has little to no legitimate use outside of cracking. There is little excuse to possess such specialized knowledge.

[Grand_Master]

Still I've heard that cracking your system is the best way to learn keep it sequre.
Isn't that right?

[canine]

Still I've heard that cracking your system is the best way to learn keep it sequre.
Isn't that right?

Not really. Like, you're not likely to discover any new exploits on your system without having serious cracking experience.

The best way to keep your system secure is to use secure software and keep it updated. {read: NOT windows}

[The_Dark_Avenger]

Blackhat, whitehat... Crackers, wannebes, scriptkiddies, hackers.... Blalbabla This are just useless debates of those, who pretend to be hackers, but are too lazy to learn.
Why care who are you? What does public opinion mean to the real Hacker? Nothing... Obeying public opinion is confessing yourself to be like everyone else... Believe me, this is not what being Hacker about...
If you will learn, in a certain period of time you'll realize, that there can't be any exact definition of Hacker... As you will learn, you'll make your own choice, and define YOUR hacking...

[canine]

Blackhat, whitehat... Crackers, wannebes, scriptkiddies, hackers.... Blalbabla This are just useless debates of those, who pretend to be hackers, but are too lazy to learn.
Why care who are you? What does public opinion mean to the real Hacker? Nothing... Obeying public opinion is confessing yourself to be like everyone else... Believe me, this is not what being Hacker about...
If you will learn, in a certain period of time you'll realize, that there can't be any exact definition of Hacker... As you will learn, you'll make your own choice, and define YOUR hacking...

There can easily be a definition of hacker. Let the jargon file be your guide, for it has all answers.

Definitions and names are important. If I call myself a hacker somewhere and hacker is deemed to be something bad, then what will I do?

It's comparable to someone committing genocide under the guise of <insert country here>, but the country had nothing to do with it. People who call themselves hackers yet crack cause legitimate hackers to be viewed as criminals. I'm all for being anti-social, but people still need to eat. And to eat you must have a job. This is difficult when the suits who you need to pander to for a job fail to discern between `hacker' and `cracker', thanks to the efforts of people such as Crawler, and many others.

[pixelot]

Sure, you can make a case for "gray" areas, but it really boils down to intent. You may do something that is technically illegal, but was it for malicious purposes, or to see if you could do it, for the challenge, or perhaps just for the hell of it?

[Trogue]

white hat im pretty harmless i just see what i can do.

[jack krauser]

Blackhat, whitehat... Crackers, wannebes, scriptkiddies, hackers.... Blalbabla This are just useless debates of those, who pretend to be hackers, but are too lazy to learn.
Why care who are you? What does public opinion mean to the real Hacker? Nothing... Obeying public opinion is confessing yourself to be like everyone else... Believe me, this is not what being Hacker about...
If you will learn, in a certain period of time you'll realize, that there can't be any exact definition of Hacker... As you will learn, you'll make your own choice, and define YOUR hacking...

this is very truth but in a certain point.

the titles are some times very important so we people can seperate things.
nd when i say people i mean hackers....as for the "public" no one but no one knows what hacker really means(actually they confuse hacking with cracking)

so the conclusion is that this "titles" aren't made for the public but for us the hackers.


as for the "make your own choice,and define your hacking..."thats a stage that takes years and years to achieve

[canine]

white hat im pretty harmless i just see what i can do.

So, you're `white hat' because you simply don't know enough to be damaging?

[canine]

Blackhat, whitehat... Crackers, wannebes, scriptkiddies, hackers.... Blalbabla This are just useless debates of those, who pretend to be hackers, but are too lazy to learn.
Why care who are you? What does public opinion mean to the real Hacker? Nothing... Obeying public opinion is confessing yourself to be like everyone else... Believe me, this is not what being Hacker about...
If you will learn, in a certain period of time you'll realize, that there can't be any exact definition of Hacker... As you will learn, you'll make your own choice, and define YOUR hacking...

this is very truth but in a certain point.

the titles are some times very important so we people can seperate things.
nd when i say people i mean hackers....as for the "public" no one but no one knows what hacker really means(actually they confuse hacking with cracking)

so the conclusion is that this "titles" aren't made for the public but for us the hackers.


as for the "make your own choice,and define your hacking..."thats a stage that takes years and years to achieve

So, writing shell scripts that shutdown a windows machine is hacking? Or sending people trojans?

Or exploiting holes in shittily coded websites?

To the real hacker, those actions are a slur on his art. You can't redefine hacking.

In doing so, you damage the reputation of real hackers.

[jack krauser]

Blackhat, whitehat... Crackers, wannebes, scriptkiddies, hackers.... Blalbabla This are just useless debates of those, who pretend to be hackers, but are too lazy to learn.
Why care who are you? What does public opinion mean to the real Hacker? Nothing... Obeying public opinion is confessing yourself to be like everyone else... Believe me, this is not what being Hacker about...
If you will learn, in a certain period of time you'll realize, that there can't be any exact definition of Hacker... As you will learn, you'll make your own choice, and define YOUR hacking...

this is very truth but in a certain point.

the titles are some times very important so we people can seperate things.
nd when i say people i mean hackers....as for the "public" no one but no one knows what hacker really means(actually they confuse hacking with cracking)

so the conclusion is that this "titles" aren't made for the public but for us the hackers.


as for the "make your own choice,and define your hacking..."thats a stage that takes years and years to achieve

So, writing shell scripts that shutdown a windows machine is hacking? Or sending people trojans?

Or exploiting holes in shittily coded websites?

To the real hacker, those actions are a slur on his art. You can't redefine hacking.

In doing so, you damage the reputation of real hackers.

dude i never said that
don't make your own conclusions!!!!!!!!

and the reputation of real hackers is damaged for years by scrippt kiddies and crackers

[canine]

So, writing shell scripts that shutdown a windows machine is hacking? Or sending people trojans?

Or exploiting holes in shittily coded websites?

To the real hacker, those actions are a slur on his art. You can't redefine hacking.

In doing so, you damage the reputation of real hackers.

dude i never said that
don't make your own conclusions!!!!!!!!

and the reputation of real hackers is damaged for years by scrippt kiddies and crackers

I never said you said that.

I said that by allowing people to redefine words, you open it up for abuse like that. It's like the scilons. They redefine words and make what they say meaningless.

Hacking is defined correctly in the jargon file. Anything that asserts it's like cracking is illegitimate and insulting to real hackers.