From: Caleb Pal, Network Operations (sysop@spitfire.homelinux.com)
Date: Fri Sep 19 2003 - 22:07:51 PDT
Hello,
Just thought I would contribute my 2 cents for the heck of it :). My
interpritation of a hacker is a person, hired by a company, to test security
on thier systems. Basically, they are payed to hack into the conmpanies
sytem and see how they can tighter security. This is the best way to do
things. A cracker is a malicious person that does things like the blaster
worm, that causes much damage, and harm. I Am a Network Administrator at a
local private school that I go to, and the worm hit our school and caused me
many hours of work. I hope they punish the person that did it severly. Make
an example. Its just sometimes people get crackers and hackers confused. I
do not exactly call myself a "Hacker" but I have been looking around, and
have helped a few of my friends that have had secuirty issues with thier
computers. Little things like having a good firewall, no shares, etc. Sure,
you can go into the "white hat" hackers, and the "black hat hackers", the
black is out to cause harm. But most of the hackers I have heard of are out
for good, not to cause harm, and we are unintentionally mislabled. Most open
source software today, Like FreeBSD, Linux, etc is the work of hackers.
People that do not get paid, spend hours and hours perfecting or creating
code that is usefull to everyone. Anyone can change it, and fix anything
they see wrong, and re submit it. Its a great system. It isn't like windows,
where you are stuck with what you get, it is way more stable, and secure. I
have 3 FreeBSD boxes I maintain, and 4 Linux boxes. The internet is held
together by these operating systems. Its free (in most to all cases). MSN
uses some freebsd servers for thier hotmail.com. They are part of
microsoft....What does that say? Just my opinion, flame on....
Caleb Pal
1952 GMC XM211
1971 AMG M35A2 W/W
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